All For Naught
by YearOfTheKitty
Summary: Roxas is back and determined to find out how, alongside his mysterious new friend. He's not the only one back, though, and a war is brewing that will draw in even the Heroes of Light and Time themselves. AkuRoku, RiSo, Shink.
1. Prologue: Apropos of Nothing

**Kitty: Hello and welcome to my favorite (and longest) fic of all time!**

**Axel: No, seriously, this thing is a monster. Like, two hundred pages.**

**Kitty: Nobody asked you. Don't diss my baby. Now, it might start off a little oddly, but trust me, it's a good one. It's an Akuroku and RiSo fic, and there's Shink (LinkxSheik, FYI) in there, too. Akuroku is main, though.**

**Axel: Whoo! Also, YearOfTheKitty doesn't own anything except her plot, got it memorized?**

**Kitty: Enjoy!**

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**Prologue**

**Apropos of Nothing**

"_But if I tried to make sense of this mess I'm in_

_I'm not sure where I should begin_

_I'm falling_

_I'm falling."_

—_Sum 41, 'Over My Head'_

_Where_

_am I?_

_Not_

_This is_

_Here_

_Where?_

_Nothing_

_Not_

_Here_

_Am_

_I?_

Eyes slowly opened. This was something that should not have happened, since there was nobody for the eyes to belong to, nothing for them to open, and nothing for them to see even should they open. But open they did, to see the nothing, and blinked twice as if to clear away blurriness that wasn't there.

"Gone…" there was a voice, but there wasn't, since there was no throat to make it, no lips to shape it, and no air for it to travel through. There weren't any ears to hear it, yet it was heard. Strangely, though there _was_ a mind to process it, it was not understood. What significance did the absence of something have in a place where there was nothing to begin with?

But now, now there was something. Eyes, a throat, lips, ears, and a mind. And more, a body: hands, arms, feet, legs, a torso, a head, and all the things in between and around and inside until there was a person. This person's hair would have been sunny gold, and their eyes sky blue, had there been another being there to see and notice such things.

"Gone," the person said, now hearing and understanding. _He_ was gone. If this realm was nothing and he was something… he must have come from somewhere from which he was now gone. And now he was beginning to remember what he had left: whiteness all around, veined with pulsing blue lights too pale to stain the whiteness around them, dotted with glass flowers that unfurled their tear-pale petals to reveal brightly colored centers.

The would-be-blue eyes stared unseeingly, for there was nothing to see. His mind struggled to make sense of his surroundings. Were they light? Were they dark? He couldn't tell. It wasn't light, because his eyes didn't hurt, but there was a difference when he blinked, so it probably wasn't dark. Perhaps it was nothingness, true nothingness. He had never seen nothing, after all—the closest he'd come was when his eyes were shut, which was really only staring at the insides of his eyelids.

_I am nothing,_ he recalled. That was right. It _was_ nothing he was seeing, because he himself was nothing. But that didn't fit. How could he blink and talk and think while the nothing around him remained… well, empty… if he was part of it? He was separate from the nothing and that made him something.

He could tell with every fiber of his being—which shouldn't have existed to tell with its fibers—that this was _not right_. Not to say it was wrong, but it wasn't right. He knew that he was nothing, that he should not be something, that he hadn't been something up until a little while ago (time was absent from this place, but his _something_ mind was simply unable to grasp that concept, and so applied its limited view to its surroundings).

_Well, then_, his mind attempted to work through the problem, obstinate that this mystery be solved, _why was he back?_ Something would not come from nothing without the influence of another's actions, and those actions were rarely without purpose. Therefore, there was a reason he was now something instead of nothing—as he should be—and if he could find that reason and reverse it, things would return to how they ought to be.

Satisfied with this logical conclusion, his mind sat back and drifted for a time. It was a while (according to his internal clock, which remained ticking in spite of its superfluous nature in this place—or lack thereof) before he came to realize that simply coming to this conclusion was not enough to change anything. He would have to discover the reason and actions by which he had come into being before the situation could be fixed, though how he would do so in this lack-of-place was beyond him.

Blue eyes sharpened, struggling to see something that wasn't there, and muscles tightened as if to move the body that housed them. Of course, the body remained immobile except for the tensing of muscles, there being nothing for them to push off of and nothing for them to move through besides the body itself.

Another nonexistent stretch of time passed before the mind came to its third conclusion: he could do nothing to rectify the problem as things stood. To do so would require him to be somewhere as opposed to nowhere, to start with. So the muscles relaxed and the eyes glazed over once more.

_This is boring. _

The thought came with thunderous clarity, and with it brought the return of another thing alien to this realm of nonexistence:

A sense of self.

The mind, the _boy_, was suddenly aware of himself. His name, his memories, his thoughts and feelings and all the things that made him _him_ came crashing down in a wave of self-awareness. For a moment, relief washed over him. He was himself again.

A moment later, panic overtook him. Where was he? How had he gotten here? Then, remembering his sluggish mental processes of before, a new set of questions presented themselves. There was no air, so he wasn't breathing, so how was he alive? Would he starve to death if he didn't find a way out of this nowhere? The questions poured over him endlessly, tightening his chest until he was gasping for air that wasn't there to gasp, his lungs screaming along with his chaotic thoughts.

_WHERE?_

_NOT_

_NO _

_SUPPOSED_

_AIR_

_TO BE_

_I AM_

_AM I?_

_**NOTHING!**_

The boy's screams didn't make it past his throat (there being no air to carry them, which was the reason for his screams in the first place) but he could feel them vibrating up through his own flesh to his eardrums. It was not a comforting feeling, and he soon gave up the enterprise, realizing that he was only scaring himself more. He tried to take a few deep breaths to calm himself, remembered his inability to do so, and settled for squeezing his eyes shut and relaxing his muscles one by one, systematically. It was a trick he had used when he had been restless and unable to sleep, and it worked well.

Too well, perhaps, because he dozed off, his mind retreating into itself to protect itself. He dreamt that he was falling through dark water, surrounded by flocks of doves, or maybe just their feathers.

When he awoke, he was still suspended in the no-man's-land between realities that he had been in when he had fallen asleep. He swallowed uncomfortably, thinking that his dreams accurately described this airless existence of his: as if he were holding his breath underwater, not yet choking and not yet dying, but not quite comfortable, either.

He relaxed and tried to return to the blissful blankness of sleep (not nothingness, for shutting one's eyes did not make the world disappear, but merely blinded one to it). It was not forthcoming. He would have sighed had there been any air in his lungs, his face drawing itself into a scowl. What was the _point_ of his being here if he was unable to do anything and unable to die? The answer was somewhere with his slumber, and both refused to make themselves known to him.

So the boy waited and thought and _was_. He gave up counting the seconds after a few minutes (by his reckoning) since there was nothing to judge them by—no heartbeat, no breaths, no pulse. His thoughts took on an almost dreamlike quality despite his continuing consciousness. In this state, he at first did not notice the pinching sensation in his abdomen. It was too slight to cause discomfort, and thusly escaped his attention until it grew into a tickle, and then, finally, pain.

He winced, unable to see his stomach in the absence of light, and unable to raise his hands in the absence of space to discover the source of his pain. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but welcome the irritation, for the simple reason that it was _something _among all this nothing.

Without warning, his entire body _THROBBED_ with agony. It only lasted an instant, but left him panting and clutching his head as he curled into a ball, trembling and sweating with the aftershock. Time appeared to have reasserted itself, because it was a few seconds before he realized that something had changed. He was panting. He was curling into a ball and clutching his head. There was air on his arms and in his ears, something solid against his back, and warmth on his front.

Slowly, eyes cracked open, blue depths reflecting the unbroken expanse far above them like pools of transparent water. Hands migrated to his sides to feel prickling grass against his palms and earth beneath his fingertips. Lips parted as air was drawn into lungs with a greedily grateful whoosh. And this time, when he spoke, the sound resonated through the air and drifted there for any and all to hear.

"Where the _hell_ am I?"


	2. 1: Awakenings

**Kitty: I guess it was too much to expect reviews after just one day… And the prologue was kinda… odd. Still, this one should be better.**

**Axel: She's got all this stuff prewritten, so even if you don't review she'll keep posting. **

**Kitty: Exactly! This fic is the best I've ever written (in my opinion)!**

**Axel: …We'll let you be the judge of that. Just keep in mind that YearOfTheKitty doesn't own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda.**

**Kitty: Enjoy!**

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**Chapter I**

**Awakenings**

"_This place rings with echoes of_

_Lives once lived, but now are lost."_

—_Rise Against, 'Blood to Bleed'_

"That depends on who you are."

The boy spun jolted upright, twisting his upper body around to locate the source of the voice (which, being young and somewhat like his own, was not frightening in and of itself so much as the ice-hard tone it had spoke in). Searching orbs alit upon a slim figure a few paces away, easy to miss except for the contrast of its blue clothing against the green grass.

For green grass there was aplenty. An entire ocean of it, sprawling far into the distance, where hazy purple-brown mountains cut off its endless spread. Closer to his position, the grass rose up in a landform too large and flat-topped to be a hill, but not large or flat enough to be classified as a plateau. Atop this unnamable construction of nature perched an unnamable construction of man, walled with stone as if to mask its true purpose from the boy's azure perception. The boy himself was seated in a slight dip in the land, at the base of a smooth-trunked, scraggly pine tree—one of several in a rather thin, ragged grove, drawn together as if for protection from the harsh openness of the field.

The person who had spoken stood beneath another one of these poor specimens of vegetation, the scant pattern of shadows cast by its needles ample camouflage for him—for though a first glance revealed only an androgynous outline, further inspection revealed it to be a slightly effeminate boy around the blue-eyed youth's own age—to nearly disappear into.

"For example," the partially-concealed boy continued in a voice as devoid of friendliness as the hostile trees around him, "if you are a foreign spy, or any other such outsider with harmful intent towards this land or its people, this field is your soon-to-be grave. Speak quickly, however, and it might not be."

"…Huh?" the blue-eyed boy blinked his aforementioned features uncomprehendingly. _This guy talks like someone out of a history textbook._

"Tell me who you are and what your business is here," the other one rephrased, sounding exasperated. _I suppose finding a foreigner with the inability to understand rhetorical speech the very time I decide to speak rhetorically _would_ be my luck._

"My name's Roxas," the blue-eyed one answered the part of the question that he knew without a doubt. The other part was trickier, and he frowned as he tried to find the best way to answer it. "…I don't have any… business here, really. I'm not even… entirely sure where I am. I'm lost."

"I see," the unnamed boy lapsed into a silence that seemed thoughtful but, Roxas thought, could just as easily have been hostile. Blue eyes swept over his surroundings once more, this time noting the rocky walls that rose around behind the 'grove', enclosing it in a horseshoe shape, the stretches of wood fence scattered intermittently through the field, and the dusty path curving around the construction on the hill/plateau.

His eyes soon returned to the boy before him. Sapphire orbs narrowed in defiance of the concealing shadows, picking out the boy's tall, slender shape, the white cloth wrapped around the top of his head and lower face, concealing all but a single ruby eye, the other hidden behind a wing of blond hair emerging from the head-wraps. Similar wraps were wound around the boy's forearms, fingers, and chest, though those were mostly concealed by a white tabard bearing a foreign symbol: a red eye with three triangles above and a teardrop below. Other than this, the boy's clothes were skintight blue material that put Roxas in the mind of some sort of stealth uniform.

_I'm definitely on another world,_ he confirmed to himself, eyeing the foreign clothes with trepidation. He could not say that he was frightened by the prospect—he himself had had limited experience with other worlds (or, rather, limited experience with other worlds when his purpose thereon did not involve a clearly-defined mission from the Organization) but he clearly recalled his other half's numerous expeditions to other worlds. It certainly made him nervous, though, since, as far as he could tell, there was no reason for him to be on another world, much less one his other half was not.

"Where is this place?" Roxas reopened the conversation in a low tone. The red-eyed boy looked up sharply, as if startled out of deep thoughts.

"The kingdom of Hyrule," the blue-clad boy replied in an equally low voice. "Hyrule Field, to be precise."

"Oh." _That's not helpful,_ Roxas internally griped. "…Is that a town?" he pointed to the hilltop/plateau-top construction.

"No. That is Lon Lon Ranch," the ruby-eyed boy shook his head slightly. He extended his arm and a single bandaged finger in the same direction, indicating a point beyond what Roxas now knew was a ranch. "Farther on are Hyrule Castle, Castle Town, and Kakariko Village."

"Thanks," Roxas nodded to the boy and stood. He leaned down to brush off the back of his legs, pleased to see that he wore his preferred baggy white-on-black combo pants instead of black robes. His sleeveless black zip-up with the X-shaped zipper, white hoodie with black checks and red lining, checkered bracelet, index and middle finger rings, and oversized black and red sneakers were also intact. A brush of fingers through his upswept spikes, and he turned in the direction of the far-distant castle. The fastest way to return to his other half was to first learn about the world he was currently in, which he couldn't do from the middle of an empty field.

Or, almost empty.

As Roxas set off, sneakers raising puffs of dust from the dry earth, the blue-clad boy slipped along behind him, as silent and unobtrusive as his shadow. At first, Roxas ignored him, assuming that the other youth was merely headed in the same direction anyway, or that, if he wasn't, he would soon tire of following Roxas and leave. It soon became apparent by the burning ruby gaze that drilled unrelentingly into the side of his head that neither the latter nor the former was true.

"Why are you following me?" the blond young man snapped. He had never been patient, or subtle. The red-eyed one made no reply, but did not shift his gaze either. He clearly possessed no shame, or, at least, that was what Roxas thought, somewhat sourly.

"_Stop _following me," he snapped again, even less patiently and subtly.

"Where are you from?" the red-eyed young man questioned instead.

"Far away," Roxas evaded.

"You will not make it to Hyrule Castle or Kakariko before sunset," the other remarked quietly. "And you do not appear armed. Can you fight?"

"Huh?" Roxas blinked, thrown. "Yeah, I can hold my own pretty well, even if I don't look armed. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"You will see," was the cryptic reply.

And see he did, later that evening. True to the as-yet-unnamed boy's words, the sun was resting upon the horizon (or what was visible of it beyond the mountains that encircled the field) even before Roxas had drawn abreast of Lon Lon Ranch. He peered through the deepening gloom. Far ahead, a shape was defining itself against the hazy purple-brown mountains he had spied earlier. He was still too far to say definitively whether or not it was indeed a castle, however, and it was woefully obvious that night would have fallen long before he came that close.

"What's so bad about nighttime?" the spiky-haired blond said, honest curiosity evident in his voice.

"For one, the gates to the castle and Castle Town are shut and the drawbridge raised at nightfall every evening," his companion responded. "Our more immediate problem, however, is the very reason this is so."

"So… bad things come out at night?" Roxas frowned, attempting to understand.

"Watch," the slenderer of the two commanded, halting. Roxas ceased to walk as well, glancing at the horizon. As he watched, the sun slipped away completely to the accompaniment of a wolf's drawn-out lament, as if the animal mourned the losing of the light (_or_, whispered the pessimistic voice in the back of Roxas's head, _the coming of the dark_). A moment later, his eyes snapped back to the road ahead as the boy beside him dropped into a crouch, knives springing to being in his hands. The reason for this became clear a moment later.

There was a loud, rapid scraping noise, as if of metal on clay, coming from too many directions for Roxas to tell how many there were—or, indeed, how many of _what_ there were. He took a half-step back, hands flexing anxiously at his sides, eyes frantically searching for the danger his ears reported.

"They come!" As if the boy's shout had been a signal, no less than seven creatures exploded from the earth around the pair, leaping for them with glittering eyes and outstretched claws.

Roxas let out a wordless cry of shock, flashes of light heralding the appearance of his weapons. Two intricately wrought, sword-sized keys, one white and one black, crossed before the shocked youth to block the attack of what he now saw was an animated skeleton with glowing, yellow eyes. The skeleton chittered and sprang back, only to clatter to the ground in pieces a moment later as twin blades sliced through it. Roxas whirled, twirling his weapons expertly to hack apart another skeleton, and then another, as swiftly and accurately as if he had done it his whole life. Though, one could argue that he had.

A glance to the side proved his nameless shadow to be easily holding his own, his blond braid spinning out behind him as he snapped around to release a knife that then drilled through a skeleton's forehead, the creature falling back as the light in its eyes dimmed and died. Two more lay dead at the young man's feet with knives similarly embedded between their eyes. Roxas summarily dispatched the final skeleton with a blow from his black key that severed its spinal column.

"What were _they_?!" the black-and-white-clad teen turned to the red-eyed boy, who was retrieving his knives from the fallen skeletons, which were now disintegrating into dust before their eyes.

"Stalchildren," was the concise answer. An ominous scraping noise accompanied his next words. "More will come, and more, until the sun rises again. We had best find shelter if you do not wish to spend your night in combat."

"Right," Roxas nodded firmly, divining the sense behind the archaic words. "Um… where?"

"Come," the red-eyed young man turned away and sprinted past an emerging Stalchild, which fell a moment later to Roxas's passing swipe as he pelted after his companion. The two blond youths quickly reached the edge of the field: the base of a rocky cliff. The one in the lead swerved to run parallel to the cliffs for a time before suddenly darting forward and disappearing. Roxas threw himself after him, squeezing into what he now saw was a crevice in the rock. The space opened up into a niche much wider than Roxas had been expecting. Little light entered through the crack that was the entrance, which meant that the Stalchildren were unable to enter as well. Roxas sank gratefully to the floor. He did not relish the idea of an entire night spent fighting for his life, even against so weak an enemy as the Stalchildren appeared to be.

"What do you carry?" the red-eyed boy's voice was thin and cracked out like a whip, jolting Roxas's attention to the faint gleam reflecting off his ruby orbs, now narrowed in… suspicion? Anger?

"Oh, these? They're my weapons, my Keyblades," the blond realized he was still clutching the metal handles almost painfully tightly and relaxed his grip. "Oblivion and Oathkeeper," he indicated first the black key, then the white one. From the end of the black Keyblade hung a crown-shaped pendant on a chain. The white key bore a star-shaped charm made of seashells on a string.

"The flash of light?" the slenderer boy was still suspicious.

"I summon them from… well, I'm not actually sure where they go when I'm not using them," Roxas admitted. "But wherever it is, I can summon and dismiss them at will."

"Why does one still glow, then?" the faintly lighted orbs tipped, as if the head they were set in had cocked to the side.

"Huh?" Roxas followed their gaze. "What are you talking about, they're not glow—_oh._" He cut himself off with a kind of strangled gasp.

"Is something the matter?"

"It's my _hand_," the blond dropped Oblivion to hold out the named appendage, aghast. "It's… it's glowing… it didn't do that before!" He brought it closer again, no less aghast, but somewhat calmer. "It looks like… a triangle mark. One big triangle made up of four littler ones… and the one in the middle is glowing…"

"Let me see," the red-eyed boy finally gave up speaking in questions, his voice sharp and urgent, and took Roxas's hand in his own, bringing it close to his concealed face to study it. Roxas winced a little as the boy's rough grip tightened on a paper cut that slashed across his knuckle. It didn't occur to Roxas to wonder how he had a paper cut when he hadn't encountered any paper since waking up, and even his discomfort was driven from his mine moments later. The red-eyed boy's gasp rivaled Roxas's in intensity, and when he spoke, his voice was a mere whisper of shock.

"You… you have a Triforce on your hand…!"


	3. 2: Memories of Nobody

**Kitty: Okay, this is a pretty talk-y, boring chap, so I'll be uploading the next one directly after this one. It's the way it is because I prefer actually typing out explanations rather than just saying 'and then he told so-and-so the whole story' because this way you can word something ambiguously for later misinterpretation, or pick and choose what parts the character deemed important enough to relate. **

**Axel: You could probably just skim it if you wanted, actually.**

**Kitty: Meh, I guess. You might miss the gasp-moment in the middle, though… It's one of the major alterations I made that inspired this fic in the first place…**

**Axel: Whatever. She doesn't own the Legend of Zelda or Kingdom Hearts, which means that she doesn't own the majority of this chapter, especially the paraphrased plot synopses. **

**Kitty: Try to enjoy, please!**

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**Chapter II**

**Memories of Nobody**

"_I'll show you mine if you show me yours first_

_Let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose is worse."_

—_Rise Against, 'Swing Life Away'_

"A Triforce? What's that?" Roxas gently disentangled his hand from his nameless companion's, thinking to hide the glowing mark before the other blond had some sort of stroke. Its presence disturbed him a bit (it looked _burnt_ into his skin…) but not as much as it could have, since it didn't pain him or feel different at all, really.

"You must be from quite a ways away to not know of the Triforce," the red-eyed teen sounded harsh again. Roxas's face clouded, irritated by the boy's frequent hot/cold mood swings.

"I told you I was. Now tell me what this thing on my hand is and why it makes you look like you're about to choke on your own spit," he demanded. "Oh, and while we're at it, how about who you are and why you're following me?"

"…I'm nobody," the red eyes shifted again, avoiding Roxas's intense cyan gaze.

"No, _I'm_ Nobody," the angry teen replied with a humorless smirk. "Don't be cute with me, just answer the damn questions before I do to you what I did to those Stalchildren. Now."

"You may call me Sheik."

"It's like pulling teeth!" Roxas snarled, throwing up his hands—sending the white light skittering across the walls of the rocky alcove and causing the red orbs of Sheik's eyes to flash. "For the last time: _tell me what is going on!_"

"You are a patient one, aren't you?" the boy's chuckle held as much mirth as Roxas's smirk. "Well, then, be warned: what you are asking is quite the long, complex tale, though I shall do my best to tell it to you. But first—so I know where to begin—tell me, do you truly know nothing of the Triforce, or its holders?"

"I already said I didn't."

"In that case, this tale begins long ago, at the dawn of the world…"

Roxas settled himself in and listened to the other boy's light, even voice as it filled the enclosed space with sound as soft and velvety as the darkness that encompassed them both. As the minutes passed, marked by syllables like the ticking of a particularly verbose clock, the glow faded from Roxas's hand, leaving only the outline that marred his pale skin.

Meanwhile, Sheik spoke of the world's creation. He told of the three goddesses—Nayru, Din, and Farore—that had created the world, its people, the laws that governed both, and, above all, the Triforce. The Triforce, he said, was a legendary item left behind by the goddesses when they ascended after creating the world. The Triforce held the world in balance, he added, and each of its three parts represented the three traits symbolic to each goddess: Courage for Farore; Power for Din; and Wisdom for Nayru. The Triforce resided in the Sacred Realm—a dimension parallel to this one from which the Goddesses had worked the magic to create the world, and which also contained the Temple of Light.

Now the story came to more recent times. Nine years ago, Sheik related, a man named Ganondorf had come to power as King of the Gerudo (a race of women thieves located in the desert to the east). He had aspired to enter the Sacred Realm and steal the Triforce's power for himself by stealing the Hyrulian Royal Family's magic heirloom: the Ocarina of Time. He had worked his way into the King of Hyrule's good graces, where he remained as a trusted confidant for some time.

However all did not go smoothly for Ganondorf, according to the red-eyed boy. The Princess Zelda, who had been merely eight years old at the time, had had a prophetic dream foretelling Ganondorf's evil. Her suspicions were widely regarded as childish fancy. That is… until that day seven years ago—when the Princess was ten—when Ganondorf murdered the King. Luckily, the Princess fled with her Sheikah attendant, Impa (and here Sheik paused to explain to a perplexed Roxas that the Sheikah were a race of shadowy servants of the Royal Family, of which he was one, hence his name) and the Ocarina of Time before Ganondorf managed to get his hands on it.

As she fled, she entrusted the Ocarina to a Kokiri (a race of forest children and their fairy companions) boy she had met only weeks prior to the coup. She had foreseen him as the one to save them from Ganondorf, and had charged him with retrieving the three Spiritual Stones—which were necessary for Ganondorf to open the Temple of Time and enter the Sacred Realm—to keep them from the Evil King's grasp.

This boy then used the Ocarina of Time and the Spiritual Stones to open the Temple of Time himself, wherein he discovered the Blade of Evil's Bane: the Master Sword. This blade he planned to use to stop Ganondorf before he could cause more destruction to Hyrule, but when he removed it from its altar, it set off a chain of events that none of them—not even Zelda—had foreseen.

Ganondorf followed the boy through the Temple and into the Sacred Realm, where he finally seized the legendary Triforce. Fortunately for them all, once again, fate did not go in the Gerudo King's favor, and the Triforce broke into three pieces that then scattered across Hyrule. The Triforce of Power remained within Ganondorf, however, giving him ample power to return to Hyrule and take control.

Seven years passed, and Ganondorf ruled cruelly. Hyrule was in a state of despair, and the land crawled with beings born of a darkness none had ever before seen. The Princess had long since gone into hiding, presumed dead, and many believed it to be the end of all days.

But still there was hope. The boy who had unwittingly led Ganondorf into the Sacred Realm slumbered in that divine place for those seven years, to awake as the Hero of Time fated to free Hyrule from the grip of the tyrant King. Upon his awakening, he set out on a quest to awaken the six Sages, a quest given to him by the Sage of Light. He did so, and together with the Sages and the reappeared Princess—who possessed the Triforce of Wisdom—the Hero of Time—who was the holder of the Triforce of Courage, himself—was able to defeat Ganondorf. The Princess reclaimed her family's heirloom Ocarina and set back time to seven years earlier, before Ganondorf's coup (whilst the man himself was imprisoned within the Sacred Realm), so that none remembered his reign aside from herself, the Sages, and the Hero, who himself resealed the Blade of Evil's Bane inside the Temple of Time.

"Or… that was the plan," Sheik here hesitated, sounding unsure. "I, myself, was not present for anything after Ganondorf's defeat—as a matter of fact, I was not even there for that."

"Where were you?" Roxas frowned.

"…Nowhere," Sheik shrugged. When it appeared that Roxas was becoming angry again, he raised bandaged hands defensively. "Truly, Roxas, I was in the realm of Nothing, of Nowhere. You see, in this world… I do not truly exist."

"You're a Nobody?!" Roxas's jaw dropped open. He hadn't expected to meet another Nobody here, and certainly hadn't expected that Nobody to be his red-eyed shadow! His brain was already reeling from all the information concerning Goddesses and Sages and Heroes and time travel…

"I suppose one could phrase it that way. I have never been entirely sure myself what I am, but I know that I came into existence the instant the Hero of Time removed the Master Sword from its altar and entered the Sacred Realm. I have since come to the conclusion that I am an offshoot of his that was severed by his entrance into that sacred place… it is true that I am not and have never been whole…" one tanned, wrapped hand reached up to lightly touch the center of the eye emblazoned on his white tabard: his chest.

"In any case, this incompleteness was quite useful in the long run. I fled, confused and alone, through the desert, until I stumbled across the hiding place of Princess Zelda, quite by accident. She had foreseen my coming as well, and dissuaded Impa from killing me outright. And then… she told me her plan." Sheik's voice took on a wistful, almost pleading note.

"I agreed to it, of course. Not only was she the Princess—technically, Queen—and I a mere fragment unworthy of remaining a part of the Hero of Time, but it fulfilled both of our desires: mine to be whole, and hers to be hidden. The Princess used the power of her Triforce to sever her heart from her body, and place her heart within me."

"Just like Kairi…" Roxas whispered, feeling slightly sick and slightly hopeful at once. It sickened him to imagine somebody else's heart inside of him—no matter how painfully he wished to be whole, that idea was one he found not only repugnant but downright _unnatural_—but, at the same time, filled him with hope. If this world, this Hyrule, was home to people with such knowledge of hearts and Nobodies (even if they didn't know what they were called) then perhaps they knew of a way for him to reunite with his other half…

And as for this Zelda person, she was beginning to sound more and more like a Princess of Heart. Her actions in removing her heart and placing it within another for safekeeping, inside the Hero (of Light, of Time) himself, no less, albeit an offshoot of him, was frighteningly similar to the measures Kairi had taken all those years ago.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing, it's not important. Forget I said anything."

"As you wish. Zelda and I coexisted for the seven years in hiding in the desert with Impa until the Hero of Time awoke. We then guided him on his journey. At times I was in control, and at times she was. I must admit that by that time I had become quite accustomed to the Princess's heart within me, and barely recognized the difference between us anymore. Thusly I was unaware of her true plans. Though, to be fair, I don't believe she had planned it until the last moment at all…" he trailed off for a moment, lost in nostalgia, before jerking his attention back to Roxas.

"In any case, one of the final Sages to awaken was the Sage of Shadow: the Princess's guardian, Impa. In consequence of this, there was no one to watch over her abandoned body while we were away. We concealed it within the Temple of Time as a temporary measure using hers and my combined magic. Perhaps that was when she began to plan… but it matters little now. We guided the Hero though the final Temple, the Temple of Spirit, and the Sage of Spirit, Nabooru, awoke. After that, we returned to the Temple of Time at the same time as the Hero, though separately from him. We met him there, where we were supposed to speak with him before sending him to defeat Ganondorf…" Sheik's fists clenched and his ruby eyes shut. His voice cracked a little—a shard of light piercing the darkness of his velvety tones.

"In hindsight, I believe Princess Zelda killed me that day. At the time, of course, all I knew was that she made it out to the Hero that I had never existed—which, arguably, I hadn't—and then reunited her heart with her body, which, you remember, we had hidden in the Temple earlier. She did so in the same way she had separated them: with the power of her Triforce. The sudden surge of power utterly obliterated my body, and I suppose I died. This is all, of course, hindsight. As I said, at the time I simply heard her lie to the Hero, saw a flash of light and then… nothing. Quite literally," Sheik chuckled a little at that.

"I awoke in a realm with no air, no time, no space… I'm sure it would have been shocking even if I had been expecting it, and as it was I hadn't anticipated dying in the first place much less waking back up. I then found myself transported back to Hyrule with no warning, looking exactly the same as when I had died. Hyrule, on the other hand, has changed so much… it looks healthy again. This leads me to assume that the rest of Princess Zelda's plan went smoothly, and Ganondorf is sealed, and the time reset. Speaking of which, every time I have given you was accurate at the time of my death. I haven't the slightest idea how much time has passed between my death and my resurrection now. A rough estimate would place it at around the same time I died since the trees look not to have changed since that day… so that would mean seven years or so have passed since Princess Zelda reset time, making her and the Hero of Time seventeen years each and I myself fourteen… since my time was not reset, after all," the red-eyed Sheikah paused. "…How old are you?"

"Well, my Somebody's seventeen, too, but I was created when he was fifteen, so… two," Roxas said somewhat defensively. He didn't like the idea of being junior to the Hero of Time's Nobody. Admittedly, he had been the most junior member of the Organization and even Naminé was a few months older than him, but he hadn't minded since he considered himself inferior to most of them in terms of power and knowledge anyway. But this Sheikah… he didn't even know what he was! He thought he'd been separated from his Somebody because he was somehow tainted—heck, he didn't even know he was a Nobody! It galled Roxas to have be smirked at like that (the cowl covered his face, but the visible crimson eye crinkled up in obvious ironic mirth) by one who didn't even know how ignorant he was.

"The strange thing, though," Sheik's mirth drained away abruptly, "Is that, while I stood looking around myself and coming to these conclusions, what should happen but an oddly-garbed boy should appear in front of me right out of thin air? No magic, no teleportation song, just one moment gone and the next moment there. And when I decide to follow this boy, who is clearly hiding something, what should happen but he reveals himself to be able to summon blades as odd as his clothes from thin air _and_ in possession of an inverted Triforce that does not exist?"

"Inverted?" Roxas blinked.

"On Princess Zelda, Ganondorf, and the Hero, the triangle's base is at their wrist while the point extends towards their knuckles. Yours, on the other hand—pardon the pun—is narrower at the wrist and wider at the knuckle," Sheik sketched the two triangles in the air with his finger as he spoke, to demonstrate. Roxas bridled at that. He wasn't stupid, just saying that it was flipped was quite enough, thank you! He glanced at the no-longer-glowing hand, unable to make out the geometric mark in the feeble moonlight that fell through the crack.

"One last question: What do you mean by a Triforce that doesn't exist?"

"Exactly what I said. The Hero's Triforce is the small triangle in the bottom right, the Princess's in the bottom left, and Ganondorf's on the top. That triangle in the middle—though I suppose you can't tell just by looking at that mark—is an empty space, a hole through the center of the real Triforce. It is puzzling, therefore, that you should be the holder of a thing that does not exist, and somehow draw power from it," Sheik crossed his arms and sat back. "And now that I have answered your questions it is your turn to answer mine."

"Well, first off, I guess you should know that I'm a Nobody like you," Roxas began.

"You have said that word before—nobody. What do you mean by it?"

"Well, Nobodies—capital N, proper noun—are beings created when a person loses their hearts," the blond Keyblade wielder recited, as if from rote memory. "When the heart is taken, the empty body that remains is driven to seek hearts—not only its own, but any heart around it. It will then steal the hearts of others, therefore creating more Nobodies."

"A vicious circle," Sheik nodded understandingly. "Though I do not see what is has to do with me." The Sheikah idly wondered if he should be worried that Roxas had openly admitted that he was a heartless creature driven to steal the hearts of others. He decided a moment later that if the boy had not attempted Sheik harm yet he most likely would not change his mind that moment. And the very fact that he was admitting it implied that he did not plan on doing it.

"You see, Nobodies have different… levels, so to speak. Some are mindless killing machines, and even those come in many, many shapes and sizes and levels of power. But others, ones we call Higher Nobodies, are like me. We retain our sentience, though memory and personality are debatable…" Roxas paused. "It's true that I act nothing like my Somebody, and when I was first created I didn't share his memories…"

"So you mean to say that I am one of these Higher Nobodies?" Sheik sounded intrigued. "It is possible, I suppose… When I first came into being I did not share the Hero's memories, but merely the knowledge that I was a part of someone that had been torn away—I came to the conclusion that I was an offshoot of the Hero because he was the only one in the Temple at that time for me to have come from. And I most certainly do not act like him."

"Of course not, because you don't have a heart," Roxas shrugged. "This Hero is your heart, essentially. I don't know about the Org—I mean, the other Nobodies, but I call people who survive on their own after creating a Nobody Somebodies. There aren't many of them… in fact, counting mine, yours, and your Princess, that makes four. You see, most people who lose their hearts and create a Nobody then become Heartless. Heartless are the darkness in peoples' hearts made into creatures that live to seek out and steal the hearts of others, in a cycle much like the Nobodies'. Heartless come in even more shapes, sizes, and power levels than Nobodies, but there's only ever been one Higher Heartless."

"The real story starts long before my Somebody and I were involved. A researcher by the name of Ansem the Wise had devoted his life to studying the heart and Heartless, but the knowledge he gained was too terrible and he gave it up, forbidding his apprentices from continuing his work. His apprentice Xehanort, however, refused to stop, and eventually he and six other apprentices lost their hearts to the darkness, becoming Higher Nobodies. Xehanort's Heartless—the only Higher Heartless—took on the name of Ansem while Xehanort's Nobody called himself Xemnas. Both sought out a place called Kingdom Hearts, the heart of all worlds and the source of all light and darkness…"

"All worlds?" Sheik repeated, voice sharp. "Do you mean to imply there is more than one?"

"Of course. There are more worlds than there are numbers, if you would just look up," Roxas smirked and pointed out of the alcove's entrance, to where stars glittered coquettishly nestled against the pitch-dark sky. "And Kingdom Hearts is the heart of them all. The Heartless Ansem sought it in order to prove once and for all that people's hearts are essentially filled with darkness—corrupt—and to fill himself with the power of that same darkness to erase all of creation and thus free it of corruption."

"He commanded hordes of Heartless—Higher Heartless can command the lesser ones just as Higher Nobodies control lesser Nobodies—to sweep across as many worlds as they could, to seek out the hearts of those worlds, and to engulf those hearts in darkness—destroying the worlds themselves. These hearts could be reached by way of a thing called the Keyhole… every world has one, even this one," Roxas peered around suddenly as if expecting a key-shaped hole to pop out of nowhere. "I wonder where that could be…"

"But anyway, one day, the Heartless came across a world just like countless others that had fallen prey to their darkness. A tropical world full of the carefree, innocent hearts the Heartless are so drawn to. Except that in this case, they were drawn to a heart of a different sort. One boy, entrapped by the peaceful existence and confining waters of his home, drew in the Heartless with the darkness that resided in his heart and led them to the Keyhole in his desire to see other worlds. The Heartless did what they do best, and the world fell like wheat before the scythe," Roxas smiled, trying to imitated Sheik's manner of speech. He was coming to the part that concerned him.

"But three lives were flung from the wreckage of their world, surviving the destruction to awake alone: the same boy who had drawn in the Heartless, of course, and his two best friends. But it wasn't luck that had preserved these two. They weren't just any kids. The girl was one of the seven Princesses of Heart: seven women with the purest hearts in all the world, though she didn't know it then. And the boy, my Somebody, was the Hero of Light and chosen master of the legendary Keyblade: a weapon capable of freeing Heartless's trapped hearts and sealing away the worlds' hearts by locking the Keyholes."

"To make a long story very short: in the end, the Hero of Light met the Heartless Ansem in Kingdom Hearts and defeated him. The Door to Darkness—the door leading to the source of all darkness in the worlds—opened and in order to close it, the boy who had caused the destruction of the Hero's world willingly sealed himself inside it. The Hero then used his Keyblade to restore all the worlds that had been lost, including his islands. The Princess of Heart returned to those islands, while the Hero was transported to an unknown world, where he then sought a way to rescue his lost friend."

"But I've skipped over the most important part," Roxas smirked. "Me. I was created when the Hero of Light used a dark version of the Keyblade to unlock his heart and turn himself into a Heartless in order to free the Princess's heart, which she had concealed inside of him at the time of their world's destruction for safekeeping. Much like your Zelda had done, I suppose, though since the Hero already had his own heart, he was unaware of the Princess's heart's presence up till that moment. The awoken Princess revived him only minutes later, restoring his heart through a combination of her natural purity and his strength of will."

"I, myself, woke up in a world called Twilight Town, alone and ignorant. I was discovered by Xeanort's Nobody, Xemnas, who told me what I was—though not who my Somebody was—and allowed me to join Organization XIII, a group of Higher Nobodies in search of Kingdom Hearts. They believed—I believed—that Kingdom Hearts could restore our lost hearts and make us whole once more," blue eyes dropped, slightly ashamed. It sounded foolish now, childish, but he had believed it so strongly then… Then again, people will do anything if they're desperate enough, and desperate he had been. Desperate to banish the hollow feeling in his chest despite the pulsing organ that resided there, desperate to be his own person and not the shadow of someone considered so superior simply because he _existed_ and Roxas didn't (though he didn't quite know how superior at the time).

"Two years passed. I served the Organization faithfully. I didn't have the same talents as the rest of them—no elemental affiliation, or magical talent to speak of—but I found myself somehow able to summon not one, but two Keyblades. This mystery ate at me. I wanted to know who my Somebody had been, that even a mere shadow of him could wield such legendary power. I didn't know it then, but while I served the Organization, the Hero of Light had come across one of our bases and made his way through it, killing half of our members and freeing the imprisoned Princess's Nobody. My best friend had been stationed there, and he alone escaped. He told me that the one who had taken out some of our best members was also a Keyblade wielder."

"I left the Organization then. Went off on my own on a journey of self-discovery," Roxas barked a short, self-mocking laugh. "What I discovered was the friend who had been sealed inside and subsequently escaped from the Realm of Darkness. He had had a hand in taking out the Organization members as well, though separately from the Hero. I defeated him once, but he came back stronger and beat me. I was then imprisoned within a digital version of Twilight Town, my memories scrambled so that I believed it to be my only home, watched over by Ansem the Wise."

"What is digital?" Sheik asked, confused. Roxas frowned, struggling to find a way to describe it.

"Fabricated," he managed eventually. "A fake world that I had been placed within by means of a technological machine—I guess you could call it magic."

"I see," Sheik made an understanding noise. Illusions were a thing he understood.

"In any case, I eventually escaped, only to immediately meet with the Hero of Light. Now, when a Nobody meets their Somebody, it's inevitable that the two become one again. And so I did. I was absorbed into him and lost my individuality. I wouldn't describe it as dying… it was too relieving. I was finally whole. It felt better than words can describe," Roxas smiled gently. "I'm fuzzy on the details of what went on next, but the important points are these: the Princess of Heart reunited with her Nobody as well, the Princess, Hero, and their friend were all reunited with each other, Ansem the Wise perished, the Hero slaughtered the remaining members of the Organization (including Xemnas), and they all returned to their island paradise to live in peace. At the very end, right before their return, I found the will to project a kind of ghost of myself and speak with the Hero—I told him not to worry about me or the Princess's Nobody, and that he made a good other. Then… we fully integrated and I was lost completely, in the best way imaginable."

"Now of course that's not the end of it, or you'd be talking to a ghost right now. I woke again in the Realm of Nothingness, just as you did, and suddenly found myself here, where you know the rest. I don't know why I'm back… the integration should have taken care of everything. I should be part of him for good. But I'm not, and I think it might have something to do with this Triforce of yours," he pursed his lips and glanced again at the mark on his hand, or at least, where it would have been had there been enough light in the cavern for him to make it out.

"It is not my Triforce, it is yours. And that is the crux of the problem," Sheik chuckled shortly. "…I must think on this. Get some rest, we have spent too long talking when we should have been sleeping. Tomorrow, we can discuss what our next move will be." Roxas nodded, dismissed his Keyblades in twin flashes of light—blindingly bright after the darkness of the cave—and stretched out as far as he could in the cramped space. He almost missed Sheik's next words.

"…Despite everything I do not understand… I am glad to finally know what I am… and to have met another like myself," the red-eyed Nobody smiled gently.

"…Nice to meet you, too, Sheik," Roxas murmured.


	4. 3: A Slight Change of Plans

**Kitty: As promised, here is part two of my double-update. I particularly like the quote at the beginning.**

**Axel: You like ALL the quotes at the beginning…**

**Kitty: Why, yes, I do. I wouldn't include them if I didn't think they were witty or relevant to the chapter. **

**Axel: …She doesn't own the quote, though, along with Kingdom Hearts and the Legend of Zelda…**

**Kitty: True enough. Also, some of you may notice that Hyrule Field appears a bit bigger than it does in the game. There is a simple reason for this: realism. I have warped some of the distances in our beloved Kingdom, mostly in the interests of geographical likelihood. I mean, a desert? Right next to a deciduous forest? Seriously, Nintendo?**

**Axel: At least our geographical unlikelihoods were somewhat less unlikely, being on ALIEN WORLDS and all…**

**Kitty: Anyway, read, review, and enjoy!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter III**

**A Slight Change of Plans**

"_On second thought, let's _not_ go to Camelot."_

—_King Arthur, Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail_

The next morning saw two tired, rumpled blond Nobodies emerging from the tiny alcove, joints popping and cracking as they each surreptitiously stretched stiff muscles. It had not been a pleasant night. Roxas eventually turned towards the distant castle beyond the ranch, Sheik falling into step just beside and behind him. Neither spoke more than three words to each other in those hours after waking. There was really nothing to say, despite what Sheik had told Roxas last night. There was nothing they could do about anything at all stranded as they were in the center of a deserted field. Therefore, the only logical conclusion was to head for the nearest civilization—Lon Lon Ranch not quite counting. Though it had size aplenty, its resources and population weren't sufficient enough for it to be considered more than a glorified cottage, really.

The trek lasted well into the day, the sun around its highest point by the time the pair had neared the castle gates. Roxas gaped. It truly was something out of a history textbook. Massive stone walls—complete with guttering torches, even during the day—an iron portcullis and drawbridge spanning a wide, still moat, and conical towers rising behind it all.

So entranced was he with the sight before him that Sheik's sudden halt went quite unnoticed. The tan, bandaged hand clamped down upon his shoulder, eliciting a start of surprise. Roxas halted as well and turned questioningly to his companion.

"I do not believe it would be wise to enter Castle Town as the situation stands," Sheik murmured.

"What?!" Roxas yelped indignantly. "And you couldn't have said this before we walked all the way across that huge-ass field?!"

"It matters little. The town of Kakariko is mere minutes east," Sheik shrugged.

"Fine, then," Roxas subsided, still fuming a little. "Why don't you think we should go to Castle Town, though?"

"Several reasons. Firstly, a person who supposedly does not exist should not walk brazenly through the country's capital—especially if that person is believed to be the princess in disguise," Sheik listed. "Secondly, by the same principal, the Sheikah race is supposed to be extinct, and they were widely mistrusted even without the additional problem of rising from the dead. Thirdly, you yourself would attract a lot of attention of the wrong sort far too close to the Princess—who I, for obvious reasons, would like to avoid speaking to until I have more information at my disposal. Fourthly…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up a second," Roxas waved his hands in front of the cowled Nobody as if to stop the words before they reached his ears. "What was that part about the attention I would attract? What about me would attract bad attention?"

"Your clothes," Sheik shrugged as if it was obvious. "They are most assuredly the strangest assortment of odd garments I have seen in my life, and would certainly cause many to take notice that you are a foreigner."

"What have they got against foreigners?" Roxas demanded, feeling indignant on behalf of his casually-dismissed clothes. He happened to _like_ this outfit.

"Nothing in particular, aside from the fact that the last oddly-dressed man to come to Hyrule invaded it and began a reign of terror that lasted seven years and cost the lives of thousands." It was impossible to tell from the red-eyed young man's dry monotone whether he was being sarcastic or not, though Roxas had a sneaking suspicion it was the first one. "Not that the people remember that, of course, but the Princess would, and she is the one whose thoughts matter. The people themselves would merely mistrust you and shun you for keeping company with a Sheikah who is supposed to be dead anyway."

"I see…" Roxas huffed, crossing his arms. He didn't like to admit it, but his friend made a fairly valid argument. "…So what were you saying fourthly?"

"Fourthly and finally, the Hero of Time is known to frequent Castle Town as a 'base of operations' of sorts," Sheik shifted uncomfortably, a hint of emotion entering his voice. "…I wish to avoid him."

"How come? Don't you think he deserves to know his Nobody is back? I know Sora wasn't really complete while I was gone…" Roxas frowned, a thought nagging at the back of his brain. It had something to do with what he had just said, something about completeness or bodies or the Hero of Time and Sheik… it was on the tip of his tongue…

"But I do not wish to integrate with him," Sheik interrupted his thoughts. The thought was gone. Roxas swore internally—one of the many things that he didn't like was losing a thought—and dragged his attention back to the conversation at hand.

"Oh, yeah… I guess it wouldn't be a good idea to do that until we figure out what's going on… I don't want to be left alone in this place," Roxas admitted with a frown. "In that case, we're going to have to be careful. If you come within a few yards of him, you'll integrate whether you want to or not."

"I did not intend to go any nearer to him than what necessity dictates," Sheik agreed.

"What if you wore different clothes?" Roxas suggested. "Then no one could tell you're a Sheikah, no one would recognize you as Sheik, and you could walk through Castle Town with no problems."

"There is a reason I wear these garments, you know," Sheik said dryly. "I am surprised you have not commented on this yet, but, being the Hero's Nobody, I am obviously not actually Sheikah. I posed as such as an excuse to wear their traditional garb, which covers my face and head quite well."

"Why would you want to cover your face?" Roxas frowned again. He was beginning to get irritated with the constant questions.

"Because it is the same face as the Hero of Time's," Sheik rolled his red eye. "Do you not look similar to your Hero of Light, your Somebody? Our faces are practically identical save my skin and eye color. Even our hair is the same, though mine a bit longer since I did not cut it often so as to purposefully alter my appearance."

"Oh, right…!" the Key of Destiny's eyes lit up in realization. It was true that he and his Somebody shared a practically identical facial structure, and their eyes were the same as well. In his case, it was his hair (though even that was in a similar style) and the slight smattering of pale freckles across his face that set them apart. "That makes sense, I guess."

"I think it would be prudent to head for Kakariko," Sheik announced. "There we may take up temporary residence in the home of Impa. She left that house to me—technically the Princess and I, as we were one and the same at the time."

"Okay." With this the two Nobodies resumed walking, this time headed for a point east of the castle. "So once we're in Kakariko, what'll we do?"

"My plan is not a detailed one," the elder of the two confessed. "Though there is one thing I have been unable to find a way around…"

"What?"

"We must break into Hyrule Castle and steal the Royal Archives."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Sora! Hey, Sora, come here!" a girl's shout floated across the crystal-turquoise waters. A boy's head shot up from where he had been napping on the white sands, brown spikes dancing with the motion straight up from his head, giving him the appearance of a startled pufferfish.

"What's up, Kairi?" his voice came out, light and husky. She had found it strange, at first, to reconcile that voice with the one he had possessed what seemed like such a short time ago. Then it had been even lighter, and with a sort of hidden giggle in it that didn't detract from his boyishness so much as lend it a kind of innocent charm. Now his voice was rougher, older, and the charm it had could only be described as rakish more than innocent. It was a difficult voice to place among the hissing waves and rattling palms and intense sunlight of their home, which she had for so long associated with the younger voice.

"Look! Look at my hand!" the redheaded girl thrust the aforementioned appendage in the boy's face, practically slapping him with it. "Do you see that? Do you, Sora?" Cerulean eyes crossed and swiveled in strange and fantastic patterns as they attempted to keep the hand in view.

"What? It looks fine to me."

"Exactly!" the hand was withdrawn. "This was the hand those bugs stung yesterday, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," blue eyes rolled up in thought as the light, husky voice rose and fell, drawing out the one-syllable word ('yeah') into at least seven. The girl had been complaining about it and he had been reminding her not to scratch it the rest of the previous afternoon. "You mean it just disappeared? That's weird."

"I know," red tresses swung as her head bobbed in agreement. "Do you think I might have accidentally used magic on it or something?"

"But you don't know Cure," the boy protested. "The only magic you've ever done is that heart-thing you did to me way back two years ago."

"I know," she repeated patiently. "That's why I'm worried. If magic is just leaking out unintentionally…"

"Maybe it was me," the brunet suggested. "Something like this happened to me just the other day, too, only it was my paper cut that disappeared."

"Really? Now I'm even more worried…"

"You two are hopeless," a deep, amused voice broke in. A second boy swaggered up, smiling slightly at his friends. "You're making a huge deal out of a missing bug sting. What did you think that ointment you put on it would do, turn it purple? It got rid of it like it was supposed to."

"There were too many 'its' in that sentence, Riku," blue eyes vanished into cheeks as the mouth beneath them gaped open in an obnoxiously loud, toothy yawn. Brown spikes bounced as the boy flopped back onto the soft sand. "I'm so tired I don't even know what we're talking about anymore."

"You're always tired, lazybones," the girl rolled her eyes affectionately. "One of these days, the tide is going to come in while you're napping on the beach and I won't help fish you out."

"Ouch. Harsh, Kai."

"Well, are you two just going to sit around all day, or are we going to get some work done?" the boy with the deeper voice demanded faux-sternly.

"The first one," the other two chorused.

"Man," the brown-spiked boy added, "you'd think that saving the universe from destruction _twice_ would get you out of homework, but _no_…"

"What would you put on your college application?" the girl giggled. "How many Heartless you've killed? How many times you've had to go into Kingdom Hearts to stop people misusing it?"

"I've lost count of both," the boy complained.

"Okay, okay, we'll do the homework later," the taller one gave up trying to get the others to focus with a mellow chuckle, flopping down onto the sand as well. "Wake me when the tide comes in, okay, Kairi?"

"Sure thing," she grinned.

"Aw, you two are jerks. I need new friends," the blue-eyed boy whined. The sound of their banter floated across crystal-turquoise water, heard by none but seagulls that swooped and cawed shrilly just offshore. Everything was peaceful, just as it should be. They had worked hard to make it so. And there was no sign of anything changing that any time soon.


	5. 4: Yoink

**Kitty: …**

**Axel: YearOfTheKitty is feeling depressed, because this is her favorite story and it only has one review.**

**Kitty: …**

**Axel: Please, donate a review to the 'Save the Kitties' foundation, and save a Kitty today. …Or else I have to listen to her cry all day…**

**Kitty: … T.T …**

**Axel: YearOfTheKitty does not own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda. And no, she is not above being shamelessly pathetic when she doesn't get reviews on her favorite story.**

**Kitty: …Enjoy…**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter IV**

**Yoink**

"_I've been crawling in the dark_

_Looking for the answer."_

—_Hoobastank, 'Crawling in the Dark'_

Arriving in Kakariko was a thoroughly disheartening experience for Roxas (no pun intended). While Sheik's assurance that it would take mere minutes to walk there proved correct, he still felt a bit put out at the sudden change of plans. The blond Nobody was in possession of an… idea about—not quite a respect or fondness for—castles. Most of his 'life' had been spent orienting himself around one castle or another (the Castle That Never Was and Castle Oblivion as Roxas, and Disney Castle and Hollow Bastion as Sora). It felt a little strange to be actively avoiding such a landmark of his history.

Not that he would rather be going towards it, though. His ideas about castles paled in comparison to his ideas about the people that usually resided within said locations. (The Organization and Maleficent had not been what one might call pleasant acquaintances.) Of course, he had never met this Princess Zelda or Hero of Time, but their very names and titles gave him some idea of their pomposity (or so he thought).

Roxas's first clue of the difficulties he would soon face was the flight of stairs cutting through the cliff bordering Hyrule Field. He sighed and began the climb, unwilling to complain again and make himself seem even more immature than Sheik probably already thought he was. The Hero of Time's Nobody took the stairs as easily as level ground. Roxas, to his shame, had burning thighs three-quarters of the way up. In his defense, he'd never really used stairs before. He'd always just opened a dark portal to wherever he needed to go. The blond teen made a point of keeping his breath light and even. Sheik didn't have to know how out-of-shape he was.

Of course, once they reached the landing of grass and turned to the right, there were _more_ stairs. These were only half the length of the fist flight (to Roxas's secret relief. He was having trouble regulating his breathing so as not to alert his companion to his plight) but it seemed to Roxas to be some sort of divine sign. What it was a sign of he had no doubt he would find out soon, most likely in some sort of painful or humiliating manner.

And to think, Axel had once called Roxas pessimistic.

Sheik led the way through the gates into a kind of town square. Roxas's mouth dropped open. The town was built on many levels of cliffs, stairs leading to and from and in and around all over the place. This place was like Roxas's own personal hell.

"Come. The longer we linger, the swifter the Princess will learn of my presence here," the red-eyed youth murmured. Roxas flushed a little in embarrassment at being caught gawping and hurried after him. They passed a pair of boys tussling and shouting at each other at the foot of an odd tree that was thicker at the top than at the bottom. Roxas eyed them speculatively. They were the first real people he had seen in this world so far, and they worried him a little. The clothes they wore were as far from his own attire as night was from day. There was no way he'd even remotely blend in as long as he stayed on this world.

Sheik led the way through the village, past blatantly staring villagers, and up the inevitable stairs until they came to a certain house. Here the masked Nobody paused before trying the door. It was unlocked. Sheik entered ahead of Roxas, and the blue-eyed young man pulled the door shut behind him automatically, azure gaze sweeping over the room.

There was a large cage in the corner. That was the first thing he noticed. After that, there were no details that sprang out at him. It was dimly illuminated by shafts of light that forced their way through grimy, unwashed windows and the thick, choking dust that blanketed everything. Roxas coughed, sending up a cloud of dust that made him cough more.

"No one has moved in since Impa ascended," Sheik noted.

"Isn't that kinda weird since she ascended, like, seven years ago?" Roxas queried. He thought about sitting down on one of the chairs around what was clearly a kitchen table. A moment later, he saw the mold that fuzzed the wood and the wormholes gnawed through the legs and thought better of it.

"Not so odd as you might think," the other replied offhandedly. "After all, it is the home of a Sage. The villagers are most likely saving it for her should she ever return."

"You'd think they could drop by and clean up or something," Roxas grumbled. "At the risk of sounding paranoid, can I ask what the cage is for?"

"Sunflower."

"…Come again?"

"Impa's cow. Sunflower," Sheik repeated. Roxas blinked.

"That's a really… cheerful name for the Sage of Shadow's cow," he noted.

"The _cow_ didn't become the Shadow Sage," Sheik pointed out with devastating logic.

"O-_kay_, then… moving on… what's the plan? What do we do next?" he finally gave up and seated himself directly on the dusty floor, looking expectantly at Sheik. The pseudo-Sheikahn lowered himself into a squat as well, meeting his companion's gaze levelly.

"The first order of business is to buy you gloves," he began, "to hide the Triforce on your hand. Now then, I have been thinking about what you have told me, and something strikes me as odd. I do not understand how the Princess could know enough of hearts and Nobodies to formulate and subsequently execute the plan of which I was a part seven years ago."

"I thought she held the Triforce of Wisdom," Roxas interjected.

"The Triforce does not grant the Princess wisdom, no more than the Hero's courage or Ganondorf's power. It merely is attracted to one who already possesses that attribute and enhances their power to a degree," the tanned youth explained patiently. "But all of this is beside the point. My point was that the Princess must have obtained this knowledge from somewhere—somewhere inaccessible to the rest of Hyrule, or else others would know of and exploit it. The only such location that I can think of would be the Archives of the Royal Family. These Archives are forbidden to all but the Royal Family, and each successive ruler adds his or her knowledge to them during his or her reign, so they are ever-expanding as well. In this way, even should the Archives not contain ancient records of Nobodies, the Princess has most likely added her own information to the collection. It is my theory that your Triforce is somehow related to the fact that you are a Nobody and yours and my reappearance here."

"So all we've got to do is take a look at these Archives?" Roxas asked. It seemed to easy, he thought. There had to be a catch. Sure enough, a moment later, Sheik spoke.

"It is not so simple. As I said, the Archives are forbidden to all but the Royal Family. We must break in and steal the pertinent information," he said.

"If you're such good friends with the Princess, why don't we just _ask_ her?" Roxas demanded, balking at the thought of stealing from a princess. Not that he really respected her (and his idea about castles did not extend to an aversion to desecrating them), but didn't princesses usually command armies that she could deploy to hunt down those who would dare steal from her private library?

"Roxas, in case you have not been listening, Princess Zelda _killed_ me," Sheik's eyes and voice hardened to resemble chips of blood-flecked ruby. "I do not presume to guess her reasons for doing so, but if she did so once she most likely would not hesitate to do so again. No, we must rely on our own strength to solve this riddle."

"Yeah…" Roxas nodded and offered a sad half-smile. His mood, which had not been all that great to begin with, had plummeted at Sheik's words. The masked young man, he could see, had already begun to suffer from the illness chronic to all Nobodies: loneliness. Their isolation from 'real people', the powers that set them apart, the fact that they could disappear into nothing as if they had never existed at any given moment… all these things combined to alienate them from the rest of the world. And yet, being human—or, rather, created there from—they could not help but long for other human contact, even as they relied only on themselves. It was, Roxas supposed, why you never saw only one Nobody, and part of why the Organization had been formed. The only solace from a Nobody's loneliness was by joining up with other Nobodies.

"So how are we going to get in?" he wanted to know, his voice and eyes just as hard as Sheik's with his newfound resolve. He would not abandon this almost-friend of his. He could not stand to let another suffer the same cursed, solitary existence as he had. (For while he had been surrounded by twelve others of his kind, only one had shown anything resembling comradeship towards him, or even truly tolerated his presence. Self-reliance may have been a virtue, but not if it came about as a result of having no one else to rely on.)

Sheik began to tell him, but Roxas halted the other boy halfway through. He would never remember all the details, and it was only necessary for one of them to know anyway. He would just follow Sheik in.

"I see… in that case… do you play an instrument?" Sheik's question was so unexpected that Roxas blinked a few times, wondering if he'd misheard. He hadn't.

"Uh, yeah, I guess. When I was trapped in DiZ's computer, he gave me fake memories of high school, and I 'took' orchestra… but I have no idea whether or not the memories he gave me of playing it will actually work," he responded.

"What instrument?" Sheik repeated.

"Flute," Roxas mimed a Western-style flute, held to the side of his mouth. "But like I said, who knows if I can actually play it."

"Your fingering looks correct," Sheik said, examining the pantomime.

"Why do you want to know, anyway?"

"It helps us a great deal," Sheik's visible eye crinkled in a smile. "You will see tonight."

"If you say so. You're the expert," Roxas shrugged.

After that, the two teens exited Impa's/Sheik's house and parted ways. Sheik went off to buy a few things they would need for The Break-In after pointing Roxas towards the tailor's and instructing him to buy some gloves and keep his hand hidden. Roxas followed these directions (up more stairs. Hallelujah) and purchased some black cloth gloves. They didn't have to be sturdy or warm, since he didn't need them for anything other than concealing the back of his hand. It was with this in mind that he stared contemplatively at his now-gloved fingers. Roxas pursed his lips in thought.

When Sheik returned, a sack thrown over his shoulder, he raised one blond eyebrow at his companion's hands.

"You tore off the fingers? And threw out the left one?"

"Cut off the fingers," Roxas corrected. "But, yeah."

"What is the point of wearing one glove with no fingers?" the red-eyed young man inquired.

"It's just to hide the back of my right hand, anyway, right? Besides, it's a fashion statement," Roxas answered, wiggling his bare fingers. "My Somebody wore gloves a lot like this, actually. Except that they had these yellow and white straps on them. And before you ask, no, the straps did nothing. They were just there for decoration."

"…You come from an odd place, where people wear things with no functional purpose," Sheik commented.

"You come from an odd place where people believe that one man can save them from all their problems," Roxas rebutted, finally giving up and laying down on his back in the middle of the dusty living room-type area. He would need to rest now if they were going to be infiltrating the castle that night.

"Isn't that what your people believe, too, about your Hero of Light?" Sheik demanded.

"No. My Somebody does his saving under the radar. Or, mostly under it, anyway. Hardly anybody knows he's the Keyblade Master, and nobody knows he's saving all the worlds. That way, he doesn't interfere with the natural order of things on each world, and he doesn't have anyone's expectations on his shoulders except for his friends', and they're his _friends_," Roxas explained. "They wouldn't put any pressure on him that he couldn't take." Sheik made a noise of understanding and joined Roxas in stretching out on the floor. Neither one was willing to take his life in his hands by climbing the stairs just to find that the bed was probably one big block of mold anyway.

"Roxas, the next time you're having trouble with something, don't try to hide it," Sheik murmured some time later, startling Roxas, who had thought his companion to be asleep. "I will not think less of you for having limits like the rest of we mortals." Roxas said nothing in reply, partly out of embarrassment and partly because Sheik seemed to drop off immediately after the words had been spoken. There was no more talking.

Roxas eventually fell into a light doze that was periodically broken when Sheik shifted or there was a gust of wind outside, though he didn't realize that until later. At the time, he merely thought that he stared restlessly at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep and getting more and more frustrated by his body's lack of cooperation by the moment.

In this state of half-sleep, Roxas was immediately aware when Sheik rose to his feet. The boy sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily before sending his friend a glance that was supposed to convey his irritation at his supposed lack of sleep as well as a question. Sheik nodded in response to the boy's unspoken 'is it time to go?' (though whether or not he understood the unspoken 'damn, I got no sleep at all' was both debatable and highly irrelevant).

The blue-eyed boy rose without another word and followed his friend out the door. The blonds snuck out of Kakariko, halting just beyond the foremost flight of stairs, descending which caused Roxas to flush a delicate salmon color at the remembrance of his shame. When they had come to a stop on the edge of Hyrule Field, Sheik opened up his sack of supplies and dug around in it for a moment. He emerged triumphantly holding aloft a long, thin rod of some sort. It was only when this rod was proffered to Roxas that he realized what it was.

A flute.

It was an odd one, to be sure. It was carved out of wood instead of the metal one Roxas 'remembered', and was shorter than that one, too.

"You want me to play a flute?" he looked up with a raised eyebrow. "Shouldn't we be breaking into the castle or something?"

"Your world is not the only one with magic," Sheik said smugly. "Here in Hyrule, certain songs have the power to teleport the player to his or her desired location. In this case, if you play the Prelude of Light, we shall appear in the Temple of Time. The Temple is practically touching the castle's flying buttresses they are situated so close to one another."

"Okay…" Roxas hesitantly put the flute to his lips, fingers falling into semi-remembered patterns awkwardly. "What're the notes?" Sheik whistled a tune then. It was fairly simple, and Roxas quickly memorized it. That was the easy part.

The next few minutes were spent attempting to convert the whistled tune into flute music. Roxas's fingers were slow and clumsy at first, though they soon fell prey to DiZ's implanted memories and began to move with more confidence. After a few false starts, the freckled boy had managed to stumble through the entire thing. The next time went more smoothly, and the fifth time went practically without a hitch.

The fifth time was the charm, apparently. The music echoed around them, ghostly, as if the very air was humming along with him. Strings of beaded light fell from the sky to circle around Roxas and Sheik as if lassoing them, before everything went white.

When the whiteness had cleared and Roxas was able to see once more, he found himself facing the closest thing a room had ever come to being a tundra. Before him spread an expanse of white marble, broken only by an equally white pedestal/altar rising up before him like a glacier. Behind it, the floor rose into a structure reminiscent of an ice shelf. To either side, white, ribbed walls like wavy glacial ice towered up so far that the ceiling was engulfed in blackness, like a starless night sky. Roxas half-expected his breath to emerge in a cloud of vapor, so cold and detached did the room seem.

One of the two exceptions to this impression, was the red carpet leading from beneath his feet to the glacier/altar, though this was bleached to a silvery quartz color by the moonlight streaming in from high, narrow windows. The other was the three stones hovering above the glacier/altar: ruby, sapphire, and emerald encased in gold filigree, glittering translucent red, blue, green, and gold in the pale light. The image struck Roxas with far more emotional intensity than a single glance should have.

_(He was on a ledge, feet dangling over the precipice, holding something aloft. It looked at first to be a curling mass of blue vines, bearing small, multicolored fruit, but a closer look proved the vines to be metal and the fruit translucent crystal. His hand reached up to snap off each crystal, just as if he were picking fruit in truth. Red, blue, green, gold, each spun through the air in a glittering arc. Four hands held them up as if offering these crystalline berries to the setting sun, casting ghostly spheres of color light over their faces and the wall behind them, already tinted pink with the onset of twilight.)_

"The Temple of Time…" he murmured.

"Yes. Come, we must be going," Sheik pushed Roxas gently aside to get at the doors behind them. Roxas shook himself out of his nostalgic daze and thrust the flute through his belt as if it were a sword (a real one that didn't disappear). He turned away, the stones vanishing behind him—_out of sight, out of mind_—as he moved to help Sheik push the heavy wooden structures. As soon as he was able, the shorter of the two Nobodies slipped between the leaves of the massive double doors and hopped down the broad front staircase. It was then that Roxas got his first glimpse of Castle Town.

From this vantage point, he actually couldn't see much of the town beyond the walls of the buildings just a few yards away. The temple was set on a kind of terrace above the rest of the town, a line of carved boulders standing guard between the stairs to the temple and the stairs to the town. The boulders, Roxas saw, bore the same symbol on their fronts as Sheik's tabard. Gossip Stones, the supposed Sheikah told him later. The boulders were called Gossip Stones. To Sheikah, they were used to communicate over long distances; to others, they simply told the time.

Sheik had never heard them say aught but the time.

Sheik led Roxas to the right of the temple—from where they stood with their backs to it—to where Hyrule Castle squatted over the town like a dragon gloating over its hoard. To be fair, Roxas's first impression of the castle—big, spiky, threatening, and malignant—might have been influenced by the liquid ripple of the moonlight as clouds drew their misty tendrils across it, alternating between gilding the castle in silver and drenching it in shadow.

It was towards this monolith, the boy slowly began to realize, that they were headed. Of course, he had always known it was the castle they were breaking into, but in the face of the real thing, Roxas's idea about castles was swiftly overtaking his resolve. A brisk shake of his blond head served to dislodge such doubts—_too late to quit now_—as he once again hurried forward to draw level with his masked companion.

The duo entered a kind of half-tunnel: a path on either side of which rose earthen walls that were at least four yards high, topped by grass and trees. Sheik, motioning for Roxas to follow, sprang upwards as agilely as a cat, landing lightly atop the small cliff. Roxas held his hand upwards with a grimace, Sheik grasping it and helping the freckled boy haul himself upwards, feet scrabbling against the wall and dislodging pebbles and clumps of dirt. Roxas gritted his teeth. It was humiliating. He was perfectly capable of jumping just as far as Sheik! …Just not straight upwards from a dead halt.

The two then slunk along the right-hand side of the depressed path, bypassing a stone wall with a closed gate in the center that barred the way to any on that path. They hugged the curving road, soon coming to the castle's outermost defenses (if, that is, one did not count the gate on the path as a defense).

It was quick work for Sheik to shimmy up and over the tall, pole fence, vaulting over the spears that lined the top as if they weren't there. But what was easy for Sheik was ever a trial to Roxas, and even a running jump (half-running straight up the poles themselves, as he had done to the façade of one of the building in the World That Never Was during his battle with Riku) nearly ended up with him impaling himself through the gut. (Sheik cast Roxas a sardonic look for this, which the boy studiously ignored. If Sheik had seen him run up fight, he wouldn't be feeling so superior.)

Luckily, the azure-eyed youth merely scraped his midriff across it—ripping both cloth and skin. A hasty examination upon his reunion with the ground proved the scrape to be merely that: superficial and nothing to worry about. Roxas was more irritated about the ruining of his shirt.

There was no time to linger now. They were now deeply enough into forbidden ground that there could be no explanation for their presence should they be caught. The Nobodies jogged across a short, flat expanse of dirt—a mere two yards, if that—before their forward progress was hindered by the moat. Sheik led the way around the side, to a small dock of sorts, where they could better blend into the shadow cast by a tower.

"What now?" Roxas hissed, gesturing to the watery barrier.

"There _should_ be a hole…" Sheik murmured, scarlet orbs flicking back and forth as they scanned the wall. There was no hole. After a few minutes of searching, his keen eyes detected a rectangular patch of stone of a slightly different color than the rest of the wall, the mortar between stones less crumbled, and a small hole drilled through the center of one block through which water drained into the moat. Sheik swore softly.

"What is it?"

"They have sealed the hole," he replied, mind racing. "I knew that the Hero had told the Princess of how he had broken into the castle—at ten years old, I might add—but I did not expect her to have done anything about it. Hyrule Castle had not been attacked for centuries before Ganondorf's coup, and even that attack came from within rather than without."

"So we can't get in? Great, just great," Roxas's shoulders slumped.

"Not the way I had planned, but there must be another way…" Sheik muttered stubbornly. His eyes continued to systematically examine the building's façade, searching for a weakness.

"You didn't come up with a Plan B?" Roxas griped.

"No, I did not, as I fully expected the drainage hole to work as holes should," Sheik replied testily, still searching. "Should you have any brilliant suggestions, I am waiting with baited breath to hear them."

"What about air ducts?" Roxas asked, momentarily forgetting what world he was on.

"What are air ducts?"

"Well, I'm out of ideas," Roxas sighed, shoulders slumping. Sheik did not miss that he failed to answer the question, but let it pass, as the urgency of the moment overrode his curiosity. His eyes finally alit upon a small door, locked and barred, at the base of the tower in whose shadow they were currently sheltering.

"Roxas, your Keyblades… are they able to work as true keys as well as blades?" he questioned.

"They unlock things, if that's what you're asking," Roxas affirmed. "Why, what do—oh. Oh." A grin spread across his face. "I can do that." There was a flash of light as Roxas summoned Oblivion to his right hand, held outstretched and parallel to the ground, aimed at the small tower door. A beam of light shot from the key's tip and struck the lock on the door, emitting a faint clicking noise before disappearing along with Oblivion (which did so with yet another flash). All the while as Sheik and Roxas dashed forward to slip inside before anyone noticed the light show, Roxas couldn't stop grinning. Using his Keyblade to break into someone's house—and not just anyone's house, but the castle of a sovereign ruler. Sora would _not_ approve.

_Yeah, well, Sora's not here._

Red-black sneakers faltered in their progress across the flagstones of the corridor as that thought struck.

No, Sora wasn't here. Otherwise Roxas wouldn't be. But Roxas… Roxas was on his own. There was no brunet waiting in the wings to spring out and absorb him just before he'd figured out what was going on. He was back on his Islands, living happily, nowhere near Hyrule. As a matter of fact, he would most likely never leave the Islands again, which gave Roxas free run of the multiverse.

He was _free_. He could go anywhere in the worlds he wanted, do anything he pleased, be whoever he wanted to be, and no one would be any the wiser. All those who knew he had 'existed' in the first place believed him to still be within Sora. If he wished, he could go far away, live among people who didn't know he didn't have a heart, and not run back to Sora to be integrated like a trained puppy. Forget 'if he wished', he _did_ wish, and now he was _free_!

"Roxas!" Sheik's sharp hiss broke through the boy's epiphany. Abruptly, he remembered that he was currently breaking into the leader of this world's strongest military, and standing dumbstruck in the middle of the corridor was probably not the smartest idea he'd ever had. He moved on, careful to file away this enlightening discovery for later exultation.

The rest of the break-in went as routinely as break-ins went. Sheik padded through the halls soundlessly, shadowed by Roxas, slightly less so. Every now and then, a troop of armored guards would march past, forcing the two Nobodies to dive around the nearest corner, or into the nearest empty room, or—on one memorable occasion—even duck behind a bust (Sheik) and a decorative suit of armor (Roxas). This last gave Roxas reason to believe that his blood pressure rose by about half during the long minutes spent pressed flush against the chilly metal, his limbs arranged behind its own wired arms and legs (and of all the decorative suits of armor in the castle, why did the nearest one have to be posed holding a mace aloft?). His arms didn't stop aching until long after Sheik's sniggers had subsided.

Eventually, they came to a hallway which Sheik prevented Roxas from entering. In a hushed whisper, he told Roxas that this was the hall leading to the Royal Library, which housed the Archives. To the cyan-eyed young man's confusion, his blue-clad companion led him not down that hall, but further down the one they were on and then into a different corridor parallel to their destination. Along this way they traveled until the wall halted them, as walls are wont to do. This wall, however, appeared to be an exterior one, for in its center was a small, stained-glass window whose panes of colored glass formed the image of a Triforce. Roxas examined it curiously, noting that this one was, indeed, the reverse image of the one burned into the back of his hand. It must, he thought, be a popular subject for stained-glass windows, the Triforce, what with being made up of geometrical shapes that easily fit together.

In any case, Sheik removed from his sack a bolt of cloth and a squat jar. Roxas eyed these items with undisguised curiosity until Sheik told him to keep watch at the end of the hallway. He was about to make some noise. Roxas took up a position at the hall's end as ordered, but peeked at his friend out of the corner of his eye between glances left and right.

Sheik unscrewed the jar's lid and began to smear its contents over the bolt of cloth. The substance was thick, gooey, and brown-gold tinted.

_Honey_, Roxas realized. _Why would he be…?_ The unfinished question was answered a moment later when Sheik lifted the now-sticky cloth and pressed it to the window's surface, rubbing along the back so that it stuck like tape from Roxas's world. He then took one of his throwing knives and used the butt to strike the cloth—and glass beneath it—sharply. There was a muffled thump, and Roxas quickly took another sweeping look down either hallway. No one seemed to have heard. Likewise, no one seemed to hear when the noise was repeated a second, third, and fourth time.

Finally, Sheik peeled away the cloth, shards and pieces of tinted glass stuck fast in the honey that coated it. This left a somewhat jagged hole in the center of the window. Sheik hailed Roxas quietly, and the Keyblade wielder approached cautiously, an idea of Sheik's plan beginning to form in his mind. His suspicions were confirmed when the red-eyed youth carefully stepped out onto the sill, inching along the ledge that ran off along the wall on either side of the window. Roxas stuck his head out, took one look at the six-inch-wide space, and balked.

"No. _No_. There is _no way_ I am getting on that ledge, Sheik. I like _living_." And he still remembered the ledge where his legs had dangled while he held up that sparkling blue crystal, the one his feet had felt so sure upon even up to the moment when they slipped and he was sent fluttering through the air like a leaf in autumn. He could still recall the way his stomach and heart had flown into his throat, the way all his breath was sucked out of him by the rushing air, the great, flat expanse of the rock-hard ground as it slowly took up his entire field of sight…

"It is not as hard as it would seem, Roxas," Sheik argued. He made it look easy, flat against the wall like some exotic species of tailless lizard. Roxas shook his head in refusal.

"For you, maybe, but my feet are twice as big as yours even without the shoes! There's got to be another way inside."

"There is not," Sheik told him patiently. "The doors are guarded day and night, and there is only the one entrance. Any attempt to distract these guards with the aim of getting inside would be doomed to failure for two reasons: firstly, it would bring down half of the castle's patrols on us, not just those guards outside the doors, and secondly, the doors are locked…" He stopped, realized what he had just said, and shrugged. "Well perhaps there is no second reason, then. But the fact still stands that we are a mere floor beneath Her Highness's bedchambers, and any disruption would certainly be fatal, as the guards would be twice as vigilant the rest of the night and we must exit the Library at some point. And that is always assuming that they do not simply bring in their tracking hounds to track us four feet down the hallway to the Library."

"Okay, okay, I get the picture," Roxas interrupted the flow of words somewhat desperately. "Man, you think _way_ too much…" Blue eyes flicked this way and that, as if hoping for an alternate solution to make itself visibly known in their immediate vicinity. To Roxas's eternal surprise, it did. His seeking eyes alit upon a drifting wisp of cloud high above before dropping down just in time to see the quick flight of an owl across the courtyard below. Inspiration struck.

"I have an idea. Get back inside before the wind picks up or something," he waved his friend over. Sheik bemusedly complied. "I'm not sure if it'll work, but I'd rather try than plummet to my death needlessly…" Roxas took a deep breath, aware that he was babbling, and let all his tension out with the exhalation. His eyebrows puckered in concentration, and one hand lifted up by his head, middle finger and thumb pressed together.

He snapped.

Nothing happened.

Sheik turned to his fellow Nobody, severely unimpressed and intending to tell him so. His mouth had just opened beneath his cowl when there was a snapping, flapping noise from outside the window, like cloth being shaken out slowly and regularly. Roxas's face lit up in triumph. Sheik shut his mouth and watched curiously.

A white and blue beast appeared through the knife-edged hole. It was vaguely humanoid in shape, though its legs' knees were reversed, and its feet and hands were clawed like a lizard's. Also similar to a lizard's was its tail, long and snaking out behind it. Its long neck was crisscrossed with red bands that formed a ridge of spikes along its spine. Its head was almost reptilian, except for its lack of eyes or nose and the elongated spines sweeping back from its skull. In its clawed hand, it clutched a long, red lance, though it was like no lance Sheik had ever seen, and it was held aloft by the beating of its spiky, almost fairy-like wings. On its left thigh was stamped a white symbol something like a cross with diamonds at the ends and two flukes at the bottom.

The featureless face swung towards Roxas, and lipless jaws parted.

"What is your will, my liege?" the voice was spectral, and Sheik heard it with his mind rather than his ears, for the beast was physically silent. It was a short, savage voice void of personality or thought.

"I called _two _Dragoons…" Roxas frowned, displeased. "Oh, well, I must be rusty. It'll do." Then, addressing the monster, which Sheik was gradually coming to recognize as a lesser Nobody, "Get rid of your lance and carry Sheik and me to…" he eyed Sheik meaningfully.

"That window," Sheik leaned outwards and pointed, careful to avoid invading the lesser Nobody's personal space lest he find himself impaled with that odd-looking lance.

"That window," Roxas repeated.

"Yes, my liege." The Dragoon released its lance, which disappeared in a sizzle of lights not dissimilar to when Roxas dismissed his Keyblades. Roxas opted to go first just in case the Dragoon was to prove unequal to the task of ferrying him, and it became necessary to summon more quickly. The Nobody wrapped thin, white arms around Roxas's waist, claws digging painfully into his sides, though he did not complain, and wheeled away from the window. They looped in a great arc about the courtyard before aiming for the Library window.

"Stop. Hover here," Roxas ordered when they had come within feet of the portal. To his relief, this window had a latch and was able to be opened. At his direction, the Dragoon extended a single claw, inserted it into the gap between window panes, and drew it upwards, knocking the latch from its hook on the inside. Then it was a simple matter to wedge his fingernails into the crevice and pull the panes outward, enabling Roxas to simply hop out of the Dragoon's arms onto the surface of a writing table.

The lesser Nobody left and returned with Sheik, after which Roxas dismissed it. It vanished promptly, as if eager to leave. When the imposer Sheikah commented on this to Roxas, the freckled youth shrugged.

"They don't really like serving me. That's a bad way to phrase it, since they don't have hearts or enough of a sense of individuality to have preferences, but it's essentially the gist of it. They're slower and less efficient when serving me because we aren't of the same… 'type' of Nobody. Dragoons were Xaldin's territory—he was Number III in Organization XIII, the Whirlwind Lancer—and the rest of us mostly left them alone," he explained in an undertone.

"What was your 'type' of Nobody, then?" Sheik persisted. Then, after a short pause, "And what was that about a lancer?"

"Each of us was assigned a number and a title depending on our abilities," Roxas said. "I was Number XIII, the Key of Destiny, and my Nobody servants were Samurai. Maybe I'll show you one later, but for now shouldn't we be, like, plundering the Archives or something?"

"You have the right of it," Sheik assented. "To business, then; we may continue this at a later time. Now, the Archives are here…" The Hero of Time's Nobody led the way through the Royal Library with as much confidence as if he had been there before. In truth, he was following the memories he had received from Princess Zelda during the years when her heart resided within him.

The Royal Library was vaguely similar to the one Roxas dimly remembered from Sora's visits to Hollow Bastion. The only differences between the mazelike corridors of wood shelving were the contents. Whereas Hollow Bastion's library had been stocked with volume upon volume of brightly-colored books, the Royal Library of Hyrule contained leather-bound tomes and stacks and rolls of old, brown parchment that looked yellow in the moonlight. This light spilled in from the line of windows in the wall behind them, under which stood a row of writing desks complete with inkwells and quill pens.

Sheik made his way through the labyrinth of shelving to the far corner of the large room. Here the shelves were only waist-high, and held rows of thick tomes bound in uniform blue linen stamped on the front with the Hyrulian Royal Family's seal. A few empty shelves stood off to the side, and Roxas imagined he could see the ghosts of future generations' writings filling the spaces. Sheik knelt down and plucked out the volume that was last in line before the empty stretches of wood. He rifled through it quickly and muttered a low curse.

"What's up?" Roxas leaned over the other boy's shoulder to see a yellow-brown page covered in columns of curly, elegant script in a language that he had never seen before. Roxas wrongly assumed this to be the language of the Hylians, but discovered otherwise when Sheik answered.

"It is written in the Princess's handwriting, so I know it to be her recordings, without a doubt. However, it is also written in the language of the Gerudo. I suppose it would make sense, considering that we were hiding in the desert near their settlements, but… it makes our task that much harder," Sheik told him.

"Can't you just read it? Because the Princess could, I mean?" Roxas wanted to know.

"I can read it, yes. Not swiftly. Not accurately," he shook his head, the wing of hair hiding his left eye swinging in tandem with his braid. "I will be able to pick out relevant words and the general meaning… but it will only be enough to direct us to the right volume. After that, we must find a Gerudo to translate it."

"Why is that so bad?"

"The Gerudo live exclusively in the desert west of Hyrule Field and are very hostile to outsiders. Especially _male_ outsiders. And the ones I used to know will now believe me to have been the disguised Princess," Sheik sighed heavily. "We have no choice. Please, do not speak to me for a time. I must concentrate on translating."

"Right, you do that. I'll keep watch," Roxas nodded and moved away, leaving Sheik to sink to a sitting position, book open on his lap as his index finger traced slowly down the page. Roxas thought that if the red-eyed Nobody had not been wearing a mask, he would have been able to see his lips moving soundlessly as he deciphered the characters.

Guard duty was exquisitely boring, especially when there was no one to guard from. Any soldiers posted outside were on the other side of two heavy doors, and were completely oblivious to the break-in occurring mere yards behind their backs. Roxas sighed and seated himself atop one of the writing desks, kicking sneakered feet idly. He now had time to think through his earlier epiphany, more rationally now that he had calmed somewhat—though the idea of unbridled freedom excited him even now.

He would have to avoid Destiny Islands, but there was no problem there. It wasn't as if it was the only tropical island world in the multiverse. The bigger problem would be avoiding everyone who would recognize him by sight. The Organization was gone, so that was one less liability. King Mickey, on the other hand, was a notorious traveler, and impossible to predict. He might crop up anywhere, and would most certainly inform Sora of Roxas's continued independence if they encountered one another—not out of any ill feeling toward Roxas, but because, in the mouse's mind, Sora had a right to know.

_Or maybe_, a voice in the back of his head whispered, _because he thinks you have no right to your own life apart from Sora… like DiZ._

_No,_ he shook his head. That was unfeeling, Organization XIII-Roxas talking. The part of him that still remembered Sora argued back. _Mickey wouldn't do that. He's a kind person. He's one of Sora's best friends._

_He hated Xemnas. He condoned my imprisonment in the digital Twilight Town—or at least did nothing to end it once he had learned of it from Riku despite ample opportunity. He was best friends with that prejudiced bastard DiZ._

_I don't know enough_, he finally admitted. _Even Sora doesn't know enough about his opinions for me to predict how he feels about Nobodies. I should just try to avoid him whenever possible, though that'll be difficult. Where could I go that he wouldn't follow?_

And there was the question. Where would he go? He had no wish to stay on Hyrule. Despite Sheik's presence, it was too Medieval, too unlike what he was used to. And after this, he would become a wanted criminal. There was no question about it. He would be leaving Hyrule one way or another, very soon.

Sheik would stay. Of course he would. This was his home, the only one he knew and the only one he wanted. Perhaps, one day, he might even willingly integrate with his Somebody. There was no reason at all for him to go traipsing across the galaxy with Roxas, into the unknown, for no better reason than because Roxas liked air conditioning in summertime.

But _where_ could he go? The immediate, obvious answer was Twilight Town. But that was impossible. The friends he remembered—hell, even the _enemies_ he remembered—didn't know him, since in reality they'd never met. The thought caused a twang somewhere deep inside Roxas, within the space in his chest where a heart was supposed to go. It was faint—not a real feeling so much as the echo of a memory of one. Sora resonating, he thought. Perhaps because his Somebody still lived, the connection they shared was enough to give Roxas at least the fading echoes of a heart.

But that was beside the point. Twilight Town was too dangerous, since Sora had friends there that he might decide to visit at any time—and too painful. The World That Never Was was another option, albeit a highly unappealing one. There he could command all the lesser Nobodies without a problem, and there was no one to recognize him, since there was no one there at all. The Castle That Never Was wouldn't be there anymore since it had collapsed after Xemnas's defeat (though its very name suggested that it hadn't ever been there in the first place). But it would be so lonely there by himself… and boring. What would he do, twiddle his thumbs and stare at the wall for the rest of his life?

Come to think of it, what had Xemnas done all that time cooped up in the castle while the rest of the Organization was off on missions? He had to have done _something_… or maybe not. That would explain quite a lot. Roxas held back a snigger. Maybe he'd spent all that free time coming up with those depressingly flowery names for all the rooms in the castle, or the members' titles.

He was the last one in all the worlds with a title like that, he thought, his thoughts turning dark. Only he had to bear the number for the rest of his life, only he could command the lesser Nobodies (technically Sheik could, but the boy showed absolutely no inclination to learn how or ever need to). He was Number I, now.

_No. I'll always be Unlucky XIII. Wild horses couldn't make Fate cut me a break_, he sighed internally, kicking his feet again.

"Roxas," Sheik hissed. Blue eyes snapped up to see the masked young man approaching, two blue linen books under his arm.

"Why two?" he pointed.

"One is the Princess's notes on the heart and its workings," he explained lowly. "The other she referenced as having to do with the darker side of the Triforce, which is what I believe the inversion of the one on your hand signifies. In any case, we must be leaving, and soon, before dawn breaks. Do you think you can summon two Dragoons this time to bear us back to the Temple of Time?"

"Of course," Roxas nodded. He snapped his fingers again, using his left hand to throw open the window. This time, two Dragoons appeared in a riot of misty, thorny vines, just as he had intended. They both dropped their lances and wrapped their arms around the two boys once Roxas had finished instructing them, flying off into the night.

Once they had landed on the doorstep of the Temple, the Dragoons vanished in another flash of grey and white thorns. There was nothing in their movements to suggest reluctance, and nor did they depart with undue alacrity, but now that Sheik was looking for it, there was something in their manner that showed their 'dislike' of serving Roxas. It was, he thought, more akin to a business relationship rather than one between a servant and a master—brisk, efficient, and utterly without any sort of dedication.

"How do we get back?" Roxas questioned.

"Take out your flute," was Sheik's reply. When the young man had done so, he continued, "This song is called the Nocturne of Shadow. It will take us to the Shadow Temple in Kakariko Village. Listen carefully." He whistled a few bars. It took Roxas even less time to pick up on this one now that the 'memories' were flooding back. On the third try, they were borne up and away on a stream of sparkling wind. The Gossip Stones watched their departure indifferently, stony gazes ever-watching the silent, deserted Castle Town as they had done since time immemorial and as they would continue to do for centuries hence.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In another place, a girl was coming to with a jolt and a throb over her entire body that left her shivering and sweating with its intensity. Her strangled gasp echoed through the space she now found herself in. After a moment of labored breathing, the girl became aware that she had exited that horrible nowhere-place she had been in.

A pale blonde head rose to watch her surroundings with deep blue eyes. Slowly, tremblingly, pale arms as thin as matchsticks pushed her into a sitting position, folding long, coltish legs neatly beneath her body.

She appeared to be underground, she thought, or else in some sort of cave. No, a closer inspection showed shafts of daylight leaking through a hole in the ceiling. Underground, then. She sat in the center of the dirt floor, just between two stagnant pools of water. Scattered around the cavern were a few scraggly bushes. Most interestingly, in the corner sat a boulder carved with an intricate design that the girl could not quite make out in the gloom.

Naminé, for so was she named, rose to her feet, trying in vain to brush away the dirt that had been smeared across the short, white skirt of her dress. Giving it up for the futile endeavor it was, Naminé strode across the space to investigate the feeble columns of light. They issued from what appeared to be a hole in the ceiling that led to the outside air, but this hole looked to be blocked by a large mass of rock. Light crept in around the sides of the spherical boulder, providing just enough illumination for the girl to see her hand before her face and not much else.

"Hello?" she called upwards, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Is anyone up there? Please, help! I'm trapped in this hole! Hello? Anyone?" There was no answer.

Naminé turned and went to the curious stone she had noticed. Squinting and running her hands along the surface of it, she made out that the carved insignia depicted a weeping eye (or a bleeding one) surmounted by three triangles which might have been eyelashes.

_What a strange place for a sculpture,_ she thought. _Whoever carved it was pretty good, though._ She smiled and patted the stone fondly, as if congratulating it for having been carved by a talented artist.

"BOING! BOING! THE TIME IS CURRENTLY 1:28 AM!" the rock declaimed at ear-shattering decibels. Naminé fell back in shock and a little fear, clapping her hands over her ears as the noise drilled through her at a painful proximity. When it had related to her the time, the rock fell silent once again. Naminé cautiously approached it again after a moment of wary contemplation. It seemed—she discovered after a bit more painful experimentation—that the rock shouted out the time when struck, but was otherwise an everyday, run-of-the-mill, common-or-garden variety boulder. Why anyone would create such a thing, much less then place it inside of an inaccessible hole in the ground was quite beyond the petite blonde.

A thorough exploration of her temporary surroundings revealed small silver fish in the pools, two wasp nests in the upper corners, and an empty, wooden treasure chest hidden amongst the bushes. When she had traversed every square inch of the enclosed space twice, Naminé plopped down in the center of the cavern and heaved a sigh. She wished for her sketchbook and crayons, so she could make a drawing of this strange, intriguing place, and possibly replicate the strange symbol on the time-boulder. As it was, though, she doubted there was enough light for her to draw by even had she had these utensils with her, and it was a moot point anyway since she did not have them.

The mystery of the cavern wore off long before what little light there was began to fade from the dim place, leaving Naminé uncomfortable, confused, and above all, bored. She idly scratched the back of her hand and wondered—not so idly—how she had come to this place to begin with. What had happened to her other half? Why hadn't she appeared where she had the first time she'd come into being? Where was she, anyway?

And why did she have three bug stings on the back of her hand when none of the wasps had come near her?


	6. 5: Arrivals and Departures

**Kitty: Hey, look at that! There is something to be said for shameless begging after all…**

**Axel: Wouldn't that be shameFUL begging?**

**Kitty: I like this chapter. We've finally gotten to the introduction of Link! Yay. So… Anyone feel like celebrating?**

**Axel: Another ploy to get them to review, huh? Well, don't let me stop you. YearOfTheKitty owns neither Kingdom Hearts nor the Legend of Zelda. Nor Breaking Benjamin. **

**Kitty: Enjoy!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter V**

**Arrivals and Departures**

"_Living is hard enough_

_Without you fucking up."_

—_Breaking Benjamin, 'Until the End'_

The Hero of Time strode into the throne room, his boots raising a clattering racket on the flagstones. Light streaming in through the large windows and glinted off the many buckles and pieces of metal equipment on his person, the most notable of which being the highly-burnished, mirror-like shield on his back and the sword hilt protruding over his shoulder beneath it. It burnished his golden hair to an almost metallic sheen, and sparkled across eyes as blue as Lake Hylia itself.

The Hero made his way across the long room, pausing to bow before the throne at the other end—or, more accurately, at the person seated upon it. It was a girl, only the Hero's own age, but with the same shade of hair and eyes. She graced him with a gentle smile and spoke.

"Link, you don't have to do that when it's just us." The voice was soft, cultured, everything a lady of society's voice should be, save for the fond tone that bordered on casual.

"You know me, Princess," the Hero straightened and offered her a lopsided grin. "I'd get too used to not bowing and shock everybody the next time you invited me to some state affair. Better not to get into bad habits."

"I'm sure you know best," the Princess's smile widened fractionally.

"No one knows me better than me. Anyway, the messenger you sent said something about a robbery. Care to explain?" Link asked.

"Yes," Princess Zelda rose from her throne and took a few steps closer to Link. "I need your help tracking down some very valuable artifacts that were stolen from this castle not three nights ago."

"What was stolen, from where, and how did they get in?" Link rattled off, sounding practiced. "I thought you said you'd sealed that drainage pipe."

"I did. The thieves used the door."

"…What?" Link blinked, nonplussed. Zelda fought down an undignified giggle at his clueless expression and explained.

"My soldiers found footprints along the top of the path, which is how they got past the first gate. A scrap of cloth was stuck to the tip of one of the fence's spears, along with a little blood, which we have assumed to belong to one of the thieves. It is unlike anything I have ever seen before," Zelda reached into a pouch at her waist and removed a thin strip of black fabric, which she handed to the Hero of Time. Link examined it and had to admit that he'd never seen anything like it, either. It didn't seem possible for a person to weave fabric so tightly and evenly, or dye it so richly and uniformly. The only imperfection was a small blot at the corner that appeared to be dried blood.

"After that, we can only assume that one of the thieves picked the lock, since the night guard on duty in the tower swore by the Goddesses that he locked it. He is a trustworthy man, and has never erred in his duty prior to this incident. However, the door has no keyhole on the outside, so it is not physically possible for the thieves to have picked it. Yet that is how they got in," Zelda related.

"After that, our knowledge is limited. No guards saw anything suspicious—clearly, or the alarm would have been raised. In a hallway adjacent to the Royal Library, we found a broken window that the guards outside the Library claim not to have heard break. Somehow, the thieves scaled the outside of the castle and forced open one of the Library's windows without breaking it," Zelda paused for breath, and Link took the opportunity to interject.

"But what exactly was stolen? A book?"

"Two books. Two very valuable, irreplaceable books," Zelda stressed. "They stole two volumes from the Royal Family's Archives, one of which was written by me during the time of Ganondorf's rule, during the seven years you slept in the Sacred Realm."

"They stole your autobiography?" Link frowned. Zelda shot him a pointed look.

"They stole a precious piece of our kingdom's history. The other volume that was stolen was written centuries before my time, by a king whose name has been lost in time. It contains details on a subject that should never again see the light of day." So dark was the Princess's voice when she said this that Link couldn't help but ask.

"What subject?"

"The Mirror Triforce," Zelda whispered. "A perversion of the Goddesses' powers into something evil and tainted, something capable of plunging all the known world into a darkness unequaled by even Ganondorf's reign. A power equal yet opposite to that of our Triforces."

"We should probably get that back, then," Link said in all seriousness. As always, his simple, straightforward way of seeing things grounded Zelda, and she calmed down somewhat.

"Yes," she agreed simply.

"You kept saying 'thieves'… what makes you think there were two?" the Hero of Time wanted to know.

"We know who did it. A short time ago, two strangers arrived in Kakariko Village. The villagers say that they were both blond young men around our age, both dressed very strangely. One wore cloth of the type you now hold, in a style foreign to anything we have ever heard of. The other was dressed… as a Sheikah," Zelda swallowed thickly.

"A Sheikah? Like Impa and She—when you were pretending to be Sheik, I mean?" Link exclaimed. "But they're extinct!"

"It is possible…" Zelda murmured, seemingly to herself. "It is possible that he survived… then again, it may just be a thief in disguise, or hoping to piggyback off of the Sheikahns' fame. In any case, a few villagers claim to have heard flute music and seen a flash of light the night of the break-in, and the two strangers disappeared the next day. This all happened three nights ago. There were so few signs that it took my actually perusing the Archives to notice something was amiss, though after that the pieces fell together fairly quickly."

"So you want me to track down a guy dressed like She—like you, I mean, and his friend and get your books back?" Link asked. "Should be easy enough," he continued at her nod. "Nothing alive can outrun Epona. If they're in Hyrule, I'll find them. Once I do, though…"

"Bring them back here with you," Zelda instructed. "It is imperative we discover how they penetrated the castle's defenses with such ease, or others may use the same method. I would also very much like to know what they intended to do with information on the Mirror Triforce and Ganondorf's rule."

"I'm on it. You can count on me, Princess," Link nodded seriously, bowed shortly, and began to make his way back out of the throne room. Halfway there, he paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Hey, uh, you wouldn't happen to have any idea what direction they were headed in, would you? It would help a lot."

"I believe the thieves will be making their way towards the Gerudo Desert," Zelda hid a smile as she said it.

"Huh? Why?"

"Let us just say that, at times, it can be quite useful to be multilingual."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Tell me _again_ why you won't just let me warp us there?"

Roxas's voice cut through the _tramp-tramp-tramp_ of sneakers on dirt for what Sheik could have sworn was the third time in the last five minutes.

"You know very well why not," came the clipped answer. Sheik's feet didn't make half as much noise as Roxas's, just a barely audible _swish_ as they parted the grass.

"It's this Triforce thing on my hand," Roxas complained. "It's screwing with my powers; it has to be!"

"You opened a portal inside of a _tree_."

"_Near_ a tree," Roxas argued hotly. "What're a few inches either way anyway?"

"In this particular case, they are the difference between life and a very gruesome death in the center of a conifer. Personally, I prefer walking," Sheik snapped.

"But we've been walking for _days_. How far is this desert anyway?" Roxas adjusted the straps of the pack Sheik had foisted on him before they had departed Kakariko. Contained within were several articles necessary for travel (such as water bottles, rations, and red potions, among other things) and one extremely weighty book. The other was in Sheik's pack, which he bore with far more dignity than his counterpart.

"Not far now. We should be coming upon it by this evening, if not before. The entrance is just on that side of Lon Lon Ranch," Sheik indicated the compound ahead of them.

"Isn't there a warp song or something that can take us there?" the boy continued to whine.

"If you don't mind crossing the entire desert in the opposite direction, yes. Which would you prefer, Roxas: a trek across this field or one across the desert? Keep in mind that you have already consumed a full half of what little water we carry with us." This was more than Sheik had said in days, and effectively shut Roxas up for the time being. The pair had set out from Kakariko three days previously, and had been forced to swing around the Ranch almost towards the grove where they had first appeared to avoid walking straight past Hyrule Castle.

Roxas was a higher Nobody, Number XIII in the Organization, the Key of Destiny, the shadow of the Hero of Light, able to summon legions of servants with a single snap or open a portal to (almost) anywhere in the worlds he wished with the same. He was also a teenager. A teenager who had been walking for three consecutive days with no excitement whatsoever (unless one counted sleeping in trees at night to avoid the Stalchildren as 'excitement') and only the unvarying view to keep him company (Sheik didn't count since Sheik rarely spoke and usually killed the conversation dead within a few sentences if he did).

Finally, Roxas could take it no longer.

"That's _it_," he snapped, halting. It took almost more physical effort to stop his legs' monotonous cycle than it did to keep going after so long. Sheik, too, paused and looked back, raising one blond eyebrow in question. This infuriated Roxas. He couldn't even be bothered to ask a question when he wanted an answer? What kind of logic was that?

"I'm opening us a portal," he stated flatly, daring Sheik to contradict him, almost hoping he would just so that Roxas could remind him that nobody had elected him leader. "How do you expect me to get any better if I don't _practice_? I'll just open one up a few yards that way," he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, "and if it goes well, I'll open us one over _there_," his index finger jabbed at the distant curve of Lon Lon Ranch's wall, "and we'll be that much closer without all this walking. Does that meet with your approval?" He asked sarcastically, trying to imitate Sheik's manner of speech.

"Do as you will," was the only response. Muttering under his breath (he couldn't even get a good _argument_ going! This had never been a problem when he'd been partnered with Axel…), Roxas threw his right arm out parallel to the ground and flattened his palm, fingers spreading apart as it flexed. A swirling purple and black vortex spun into being a few feet away.

"Come on," Roxas ordered, contemplating violence if Sheik resisted. To his suspicion, the blue-clad youth docilely stepped forward into the portal without a sound. Roxas followed, putting one foot out at an angle that would plunge it straight through the swirling, bruise-colored substance…

…and blinking in disorientation as it came down on grassy dirt, the portal behind him vanishing without a trace into thin air.

"See? It worked just like I said it would," he turned proudly to Sheik. "Sure saves us a lot of walking, huh? Just one step and _poof!_ There you are."

"Where we are," Sheik said mildly, "is more than a few yards _that way_."

"Huh?" Roxas blinked again and took stock. Scraggly pine trees… cliffs in a horseshoe shape… dip in the land… hill in the distance…

He was right back where he and Sheik had first appeared, four days ago.

A good two miles farther than he'd intended to go.

"Th-that's okay!" he spluttered. "I'll just open another one and we'll go right back! It's this damn Triforce, I _know_ it is…"

"I'm walking," Sheik said flatly, turning and beginning to do just that. A moment later however, he stiffened suddenly and threw himself behind the nearest pine, dragging Roxas along with him by his arm. The two blonds threw themselves flat to the ground beneath a twiggy bush as Roxas heard what Sheik had. A high, repetitive noise drifted over the grass.

Humming, Roxas thought. It was a girl humming.

The girl herself soon came into view, gathering armfuls of fallen pine needles as she sang, heedless of the way they poked into her arms. Her long, red hair swung as she straightened from scooping up another load, nearly dropping it a moment later when the hem of her dress caught on a branch, causing her to almost trip.

"Malon, the daughter of the owner of Lon Lon Ranch," Sheik breathed to Roxas. The blue-eyed Nobody looked to be about to reply when he was cut off by the subject of their scrutiny.

"What's that?" Malon dropped her armload of needles and looked about herself frantically. "Is someone there?" Sheik silently swore. He had forgotten how sensitive Hylian ears were…

"I know I heard somethin'," the girl propped her hands on her hips and glared sternly into a clump of bushes far to the right of where Sheik and Roxas hid. "Don' try ta pretend ya ain't there. Who's there?"

"Hello? Is someone out there?" a faint, muffled voice broke into the tense silence that followed. Roxas jerked as if he'd been shot, and so did Malon, though for different reasons.

"Oh my Goddesses!" the redhead scrambled over to a boulder set between the roots of a pine tree, placing her palms flat on the rock and speaking to it. "Is someone trapped down there?"

"Yes! Yes, I'm here!"

"Goddesses," Malon muttered again. "Don' worry, I'll get ya outta there. Are ya alright? Not hurt?"

"No, I'm not hurt. I'm very hungry, though. I've been down here for three days," the voice replied. "There's some water, though, so I'm not thirsty…"

"Stay put," the ranch girl ordered, then winced. "Sorry. Just… never mind. I'll get you some help soon as I can. We'll get ya out." Malon stepped away from the boulder and—oddly—clasped her hands beneath her chin as if praying, tilting her head back and swaying slightly. To Roxas's confusion, the girl opened her mouth and began to sing, a short, peaceful song that made the blond Nobody relax just listening to it.

After a few repetitions, a rhythmic pounding noise broke into the song. It started out faint, but gradually grew louder and louder as whatever was making it approached.

"_Epona_," Sheik made the word sound like a curse. "And the Hero will be with her, Din damn it all! We've got to get out of here without her noticing…"

"But that's Naminé under that boulder," Roxas argued. "The Princess of Heart's Nobody, one of my best friends! I can't just leave her!"

"Would you ask me to give up my life—again—for hers?" Sheik demanded. "I have had enough with Princesses."

"Ssh!" Roxas hissed, pressing himself lower. "Look! Is that him?" He didn't need to see Sheik's nod to know that he was right.

A beautiful red mare with black markings and a white mane, tail, and fetlocks was galloping towards the grove, her hooves creating the pounding noise underlining Malon's song. On her back was a young, blond boy in a green tunic. A long, green hat covered his head, though not the blond wings of his bangs or long, pointed, pierced ears. On his arm was a silver shield as reflective as a sheet of glass, and his other hand clutched the handle of a slim broadsword, apparently leaving him to guide his horse with his knees. What struck Roxas most strongly, though, was his face.

As it was, it was impossible to tell whether or not this boy's face truly was identical to Sheik's, since Roxas had never seen Sheik's face. He could, however, clearly graft the sharp, elfin features and long, aquiline nose onto Sheik's head in his imagination. It was a bit odd, to say the least. Was this how people felt looking at Sora and him?

Behind the Hero of Time rode two armored Hylian soldiers, their horses lagging far behind the boy's red mare. The horse planted her hooves and came to a dead halt (from a dead gallop) just inches in front of Malon, dropping her head to nuzzle the girl affectionately.

"What's up, Malon? Epona just took off running all of a sudden…" the Hero queried. His voice wasn't like Sheik's, but then again, Roxas's voice was nothing like Sora's. Of course, he had heard that people's voices always sounded odd to themselves…

"There's a girl trapped under this boulder," Malon explained hurriedly. "I dunno how she got down there, but she's been there for three days! You gotta get her out before she starves!"

"Right," the Hero nodded and slung both shield and sword over his back so that his hands were free to steady his sliding descent from Epona's back. He reached the boulder in two strides, rummaged around in a pouch at his waist, and brought out a pair of golden gauntlets, which he then pulled on briskly.

"Stand back," he ordered Malon, Epona, and the guards. Obediently, they all took a few steps back (even Epona). The Hero gripped either side of the boulder in his gauntleted hands, planted his feet, and heaved backwards. The boulder came up. It rose to waist level, then shoulder level, then the Hero hoisted it up over his head. With a single, violent motion, he flung the boulder away, where it shattered into pieces with a grating _CRACK_!

"There you go," he crouched down and stuck his hand into the hole, apparently grasping the hand of the one inside. "Come on up, now." The girl was lifted easily up and out. Blue eyes squinted through the sudden light, and one matchstick arm lifted to block the unwelcome rays. Gold blonde hair waved as she turned to face her saviors, her other hand surreptitiously tugging at the hem of her short, white dress.

Naminé.

Roxas made as if to spring to his feet, but Sheik firmly planted a hand on his shoulder to keep him pinned.

"Thank you so much," Kairi's Nobody was saying to the Hero of Time. "I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come."

"Don't mention it. Saving damsels is in my job description," the Hero joked, obviously embarrassed.

"Them gauntlets did most o' the liftin' anyhow," Malon teased him. "Now you come with me, Miss, an' we'll get you somethin' to eat back at the Ranch. You look ready to pass out."

"One moment, Malon," the Hero forestalled her. He fished around in his pouch once more, this time withdrawing a scrap of fabric. "Have you seen two oddly-dressed people around my age coming through the Field recently? One was dressed like a Sheikah, and the other in this stuff." He handed Malon the fabric. After a few moments of examination, Malon handed it back.

"Can't say I have. Sorry."

"That's okay. I don't suppose you would have?" he glanced at Naminé with a teasing smile.

"What's that?" the blonde girl completely ignored him and snatched away the fabric. Blue eyes widened. "This looks like… this is Roxas's shirt…"

"Whose? Do you know him? Please, tell me what you know!" the Hero demanded urgently.

"He is… was… a friend of mine…" the Nobody girl tilted her head downwards, confused and sad. "But he's gone, I know he is…"

"He's not," the Hero informed her grimly. "He stole from the Princess, and I'm tracking him down to arrest him and his friend. If you know anything that might help me catch him, please, tell me."

"Stealing? Roxas?" Naminé looked shocked, then irritated, speaking to herself quietly. "No, if he did that, he had a very good reason. He's got too much of his Somebody in him to just go around stealing things. I'm sorry, but I can't help you. I truly thought he was gone." She addressed the last part to the Hero of Time.

"That's okay. At least now I have a name," he smiled readily. "Speaking of which, what's yours?"

"I'm Naminé."

"My name's Malon," the redhead girl cut in.

"Link," the Hero added. Once they had all exchanged various forms of the phrase 'it's nice to meet you', Malon and Naminé turned and began to walk away in the direction of the Ranch, the latter leaning heavily on the former. Roxas again had to fight down the urge to sprint after her. She had no idea where she was! She didn't even know for sure if he was alive! He couldn't just leave her alone on a strange world with no idea of how she'd got there!

_As soon as the Hero leaves,_ he decided, _I'm headed for Lon Lon Ranch. Naminé can go to the desert with us._

Unfortunately, his plans never got that far. They didn't even last past the first clause.

"Who's over there, in those bushes?" Link turned to face Sheik and Roxas's hiding place, staring right at them. "I heard you moving around while we were talking. Come out now, or I'm throwing a bomb in."

"A _bomb_?!" Roxas couldn't help but repeat incredulously, leaping to his feet so as to better glare bloody murder at Sheik. "You forgot to mention the Hero runs around with heavy ordinance _on his person_!"

"It never came up," Sheik returned. "Thank you for blowing our cover, by the way."

"He knew we were here. He said so."

"He could have been bluffing!"

"As much as I hate to interrupt," Link broke in, sounding bemused. "You two are under arrest for breaking into the castle and stealing from the library. Now, do me a favor, and step out of those bushes so we can do this without violence, okay?"

"Like hell," Roxas snorted. "You stay where you are, Sheik…ah," he belatedly tacked on the final syllable, transforming Sheik's name into a convenient and understandable alias. "I'll get rid of them."

"Roxas, don't…!" Sheik's warning was too late. Roxas had already whipped out his Keyblades and charged, blades held out to either side. Link's sword was out and parrying almost instantly, the blade of his weapon meeting the oddly-shaped blades of Roxas's as they both came down in an overhead strike.

Roxas, though, was expecting the move and used his swords' momentum from bouncing off of Link's blade to spin himself around and aim a double slash at the Hero of Time's midsection. Link brought his sword around to block that strike, too, but Roxas had expected that one as well. The blond Nobody brought Oblivion around in a slash aimed at Link's head while Oathkeeper kept the Somebody's sword occupied.

Link ducked instinctively, and turned the move into a trip, his leg sweeping out and around to catch the backs of Roxas's ankles. The dual-wielding youth fell backwards, his legs flying up to give him momentum and flip into a reverse somersault that brought him out of range of any follow-up attacks.

He came up out of the roll several feet away, Oathkeeper and Oblivion out to either side in his usual fighting stance, one foot already stepping forward in the beginnings of another charge.

A charge which was brought up rather short by the blurred object that flew through the air to collide with Roxas's temple. The Key of Destiny's eyes rolled up in his head as he collapsed bonelessly to the dirt, out for the count.

Link caught his boomerang with an expert snap of the wrist as it returned to him, stowing it in the pouch at his hip from which he had first taken it while Roxas had been rolling. He turned to aim an icy blue glare at the bushes where Sheik still hid. Behind him, the two soldiers stepped forward and hauled Roxas up by his armpits, flinging the boy none too gently over the back of one of their horses' saddles.

"I didn't want to do that, but I'll do it to you, too, if you make me. Come out now," the Hero of Time ordered. Sheik hesitated, torn. He didn't want to disappear, which Roxas had told him in no uncertain terms he would if he got too close to Link. On the other hand, how could he run away and leave Roxas to take the fall for a plan that had been entirely his? The boy would be helpless on his own in this foreign world…

And that thought made him feel so guilty for even considering running that he unfolded himself from his crouch, hands held palms-out on either side of his chest in surrender. It gave him a morbid sort of satisfaction to see Link's eyes go completely round at the sight of him.

"Shei…" he began, stopped, shook himself, and continued, now glaring. "I don't know who you are or how you got such a good disguise, but if you hoped to get my sympathy, it's not working. You're still under arrest, and the Princess will be _very_ interested in why you're going around masquerading as her."

"I've no doubt of how the Princess will react upon seeing me, and I have no wish to see it in action. Far better to die here, I think; Roxas _has_ told me it is the best feeling in the world," Sheik tried to reassure himself. Then, with an apologetic glance at the limp form of Roxas, thrown over the back of a saddle like so much baggage—he was abandoning the poor boy after all—he took two steps out of the bushes, bringing him within two feet of Link.

A green glow surrounded him, and he sighed once in… regret? Relief?

_Goodbye._

_I'm sorry._


	7. 6: Who?

**Kitty: Kind of filler-y, this one… Whatev. I wasn't going to post this just yet, but then I thought 'people have this on Story Alert, what if they see that other story I just updated and wonder why I didn't update this one?' So I updated.**

**Axel: Wow. You have some serious pressure issues.**

**Kitty: I would thank you to shut up now.**

**Axel: First, though, I have to say that YearOfTheKitty does not own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda. Only one more chapter until I show up!**

**Kitty: I might have to get a different muse then… Anyway, enjoy!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter VI**

**Who?**

"_Today, gents, is the day you shall always remember as the day you _almost_ caught Captain Jack Sparrow."_

—_Captain Jack Sparrow, 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl'_

Roxas was dreaming. He _had_ to be, because there was _no way_ he was regaining consciousness after a knock to the head from a _boomerang_. He'd never live down the shame. Unfortunately for his pride, regaining consciousness after a knock to the head from a boomerang was exactly what he appeared to be doing.

Sapphire eyes fluttered beneath closed lids, cheeks and nose scrunching up at the sudden sensory overload that waking up caused. Suddenly, he was cold all over, and the backs of his shirt and pants were damp. There was a throbbing pain centered on his temple—no, no there _wasn't_ because he _hadn't_ taken a hit there, especially not from a _boomerang_.

_Denial is not a pretty thing._

"Rejoining the living, Roxas?" a dry voice noted from somewhere nearby. "I suppose you have a terrible headache… I would give you some potion, but we should save them for emergencies. Besides, you deserve what you get after charging straight in like that after I warned you not to."

"You," Roxas began flatly, his eyes still shut, still lying, unmoving, on his back, "are going to give me a full rundown on the Hero of Time's arsenal _right now_. In fact, from now on, you're going to give me a full rundown on the arsenal of _everyone_ we meet, just to avoid misunderstandings like my believing he was a _swordsman_ when really he carried _bombs_ and _boomerangs_, too."

"I take it you're upset, then."

"Damn straight I'm upset!" Roxas's eyes snapped open in impotent fury. "I was just clonked on the head by a bent stick traditionally used to take down _kangaroos_, for God's sake! Hell, are there even any kangaroos in Hyrule?! What the hell is he doing with a boomerang?!"

"Boomerangs are perfectly acceptable weaponry," Sheik told him somewhat bemusedly. "In Hyrule, they are traditionally used to combat Keese. In any case, I meant that you deserved what you got for leaving your guard so wide open. I find it difficult to believe no one has yet taken advantage of the fact that you leave your body completely unprotected when you fight. It is past time you learned not to hold your arms thus." The blue-clad young man spread his arms out to either side in mockery of Roxas's fighting stance.

"Look, it's always worked in the past, okay?" Roxas levered himself up into a sitting position with one arm, the other reaching up to cradle his aching head. Blue eyes rose for the first time since opening with the intent of examining his surroundings.

They appeared to have left the grove. Roxas lay on his back on a dirt path, staring up at a kind of ceiling of rock. To his left, a cliff rose up high, topped by a stick fence. On the other side leaned an overhang, so high and far over that it practically met the other cliff to form a lopsided tunnel. Between the two cliffs, Roxas could see a strip of cobalt velvet studded with diamonds—the dusky sky. That explained the chill raising goosebumps on his skin, and the coldness of the earth against his back. What it did not explain was the odd ache in all of his muscles. Just off to the side sat Sheik, leaning against the upright cliff, legs sprawled carelessly in front of him.

"What happened?" Roxas asked, sitting fully upright. "Why aren't we in some dungeon in Hyrule Castle by now?"

"You were knocked out by the Hero's _boomerang_," Sheik informed him, laying heavy emphasis on the hated word. "After that, they began to take you away, and I surrendered…"

"What? Why?" Roxas was startled and slightly incredulous. "Why would you do that? You could've run!"

"I would not leave you to take the blame for my schemes, Roxas," Sheik snapped, offended. "In any case, it matters little now. I thought at the time that I would disappear again, and, indeed, approaching the Hero caused me to glow with a green light and fade around the edges… But then, this happened." He lifted his left hand, back facing Roxas, to show his friend the smooth, tan skin. Except now it was not so smooth anymore. Instead, the appendage was marked by six burnt-looking lines that showed up vividly against even his brown skin.

"You…! A Triforce…? It's not…! How is…?" Roxas gabbled, unable to form a coherent sentence accurate enough to express his shock.

"I know," Sheik nodded. "It was rather unexpected to me, too."

"Which one?" Roxas managed at last. "Which one glows?"

"The center, the one that is supposed to be an empty hole, just as yours," Sheik told him solemnly. "But see? Mine is thicker towards the wrist and pointed at the knuckles, not inverted like yours is."

"ARGH!" Roxas's sudden shout startled several nearby Keese from their nesting place on the overhang's underside. The boy doubled over, white-knuckled fists buried in his golden tresses, face contorted in frustration. "When are we going to finally get some answers instead of more damn questions?!"

"Getting emotional will solve nothing, Roxas," Sheik informed him as loftily as he was able while being just as aggravated as the one he was lecturing. "We must simply take things one stage at a time. For now, our goal is translating these Archives."

"Speaking of which…" Roxas took a few deep breaths through his nose and sat up again, eyeing Sheik curiously. "What happened after your… Triforce… started glowing?"

"I stopped fading," Sheik said simply. Then, barely giving Roxas enough time to work out what he had said much less the implications of such a bombshell, he continued. "When I realized I was still here, I took my chance whilst the Hero was distracted. I threw a few Deku nuts to blind him and his guards, then snatched you away and ran. I have been on the run from the Hero ever since."

"This doesn't look like running to me," Roxas cast a glance over the cave-like space, one eyebrow raised.

"I believe carting your unconscious body all over Hyrule Field for an entire day while simultaneously concealing the both of us from a Hero with a horse nearly as swift as thought entitles me to a _short_ break come nightfall," Sheik recited stonily.

"Point," Roxas sighed.

"'Point'?"

"Shorthand for 'I concede the'," Roxas explained tiredly, rubbing his temple and grimacing. "Anyway, we should probably get moving soon then, huh? How far are we from the desert now?"

"It is there," Sheik pointed to the other end of the overhang. "We should be able to reach it before the Stalchildren emerge. If not… well, that was why I picked this overhang to rest. It is fairly easily defensible."

"That's reassuring," Roxas mumbled, climbing to his feet and popping his lower back loudly. "Ugh, Sheik, what did you do to me while I was unconscious, tie me into knots?"

"I may have dropped you a few times," Sheik reluctantly related. "…And possibly rolled you into a ditch once… or twice."

"Just you wait till someone knocks _you_ out," Roxas gave his friend the evil eye. "Just you _wait_…"

"Let us move on, shall we?" Sheik changed the subject hurriedly, hefting his pack onto his shoulders and moving off at a slow trot. Roxas lifted his own burden and followed.

The two made slow progress along the half-tunnel. Sheik's steps were laced with the exhaustion that comes with running all day coupled with mental stress, and Roxas was weak and achy from his prolonged state of unconsciousness. Neither spoke for some time. Finally, the silence was broken by Roxas.

"…Hey, Sheik?"

"Yes?"

"I was wondering… if it was the Hero of Time who stole these Archives, would _he_ be put to death for it?"

"It would depend," Sheik shrugged. "The Hero is a difficult person to place among the political hierarchy. He can get away with things no other could, but there is also the wronged ruler's credibility to consider… the Princess could not just let him go unpunished…"

"What if it was the princess—or whatever leader they've got—of the Gerudo? Wouldn't they not kill her so they wouldn't start a war?" Roxas persisted.

"Yes," Sheik nodded. "If the Gerudo princess were to steal the Archives, she would become a political prisoner—in which case recompense for her crime would be demanded from her people. Anyone less than a ruler, though—say, for example, a representative—would most likely be put to death. Credibility is absolutely vital for those in power to maintain with their people."

"I see," Roxas became thoughtful once more.

"I do not see how that helps us, though, as neither of us is the Gerudo princess nor the Hero of Time," Sheik informed him tartly. Then, a thought striking him, "And we are _not_ going to tell them that I am his offshoot! That would only cause unnecessary trouble. We might be labeled as lunatics. And revealing ourselves to be creatures without hearts would be the exact opposite of beneficial to the goal of preventing our execution."

"That's not what I was…" Roxas began. He stopped and sighed. "Never mind, Sheik. I was just curious, that's all. Is that the entrance to the desert?" He pointed to a gap in the cliffs to their left.

"Yes. Turn here."

The pair of Nobodies did so, and found themselves in a flat, open area. Here no grass grew, and Roxas could feel a dry wind blowing from ahead. He forged onwards, into another gap in the cliffs that formed a roofless tunnel that twisted and turned its way through the no-man's-land between plains and desert.

The moon was well on its way through the sky when the passage suddenly jackknifed to the left. The bend hid what was beyond it, so Roxas was taken by surprise when he rounded the corner and found himself confronted with a moat.

It was not a moat in the traditional sense, but it seemed to act as one. A sturdy wooden plank spanned the distance across a deep, water-filled trench in the earth. The water poured down from a river on the top of the trench's right side and exited somewhere Roxas couldn't see.

The Nobodies strode across the plank with no trouble at all. It was a cinch compared to the clock tower in Twilight Town for Roxas, and for Sheik, it was what he had trained for seven years for.

On the other side of the bridge, the cliffs opened up on either side, running away into the misty distance. The temperature spiked suddenly in a swirl of warm, dry air, as if someone had just opened a giant oven door on the other side of the desert.

Directly before them was a chasm. It, like the cliffs, ran as far as Roxas could see in either direction, and was so deep that the bottom (if there was one) was shrouded in darkness, though he could make out the sound of rushing water, far below. Square arches were situated on either side of the gorge, and the remains of a mangled, twisted plank bridge hung flat against the opposite side. There was no way across that Roxas could see.

"Kind of overkill, don't you think? I mean, a moat _and_ a bottomless pit? How paranoid are these Gerudo, anyway?" Roxas shook his head in wonderment.

"Roxas, my friend," Sheik chuckled. "You have not seen anything yet."

"So how're we getting across?" Roxas stepped carefully to the edge and peered over. He considered dropping a rock down, but decided that ignorance was bliss, and inched backwards again.

"It truly pains me to say it, but…" Sheik shut his eyes and took a deep breath, steeling himself. "You must open a portal to the other side."

"Really?" Roxas lit up. "Oh, _yeah_! I knew you'd realize how much easier my portals make things!"

"Just do it quickly, before I change my mind."

"Okay, here goes," Roxas held out his hand in front of him, shutting his eyes in concentration. He _would_ send them to the right place this time. As always, a purple-black vortex appeared before them. Sheik went first, the expression on his face comparable to that of a prisoner walking toward the execution block. Roxas rolled his eyes and followed.

In all fairness, they _did_ come out on the other side of the gorge.

Unfortunately for them, however, they came out in the middle of the desert.

Directly in front of a desert patrol.

"Halt!" Three spears were leveled at Roxas's throat before he could say 'oops'. Sheik was in similar straits, three more bladed weapons hovering before his face. He shot Roxas a nasty glare from the corner of his eye, which the Key of Destiny ignored in favor of keeping his eyes on the spearheads inches from his collarbone. A glance upwards showed six pairs of fierce yellow eyes, like hunting hawks', visible above purple veils that concealed their other features. Each one had red hair tied back in a ponytail (though in varying lengths, heights, and shades of red), thick makeup (again, different for each), and a purple outfit that seemed to be some kind of uniform, along with the veils.

"Gerudo, I'm guessing?" he sighed, raising his hands up in surrender. Sheik copied the movement beside him.

"That's right. But from now on, I'll be asking the questions," a seventh girl swaggered out of the ranks.

This one was different. She wore no veil, unless one counted the red bandana tied at her throat, and her outfit was dark blue instead of purple. Her skin, though tan, was much paler than her companions', and she wore only minimal makeup. Most notable were her bright blue eyes and sunny golden hair, tied back in the standard ponytail as it was. She, too, held a spear, but kept it at her side. She was obviously in charge.

Roxas would have thought nothing more of her singular looks had he been on his own. For all he knew, Gerudo commanders were all blondes instead of redheads, and all wore blue and no veils. Hell, for all he knew, Gerudo commanders wore nothing at all and dyed their hair bubble gum pink.

He did think twice, however, when Sheik sucked in a gasp, visible eye widening until his iris was a mere dot in the center of an expanse of white.

"_Princess Zelda_?!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Hah!" a sharp shout rang out, accompanied by the heavy swish of metal through air as a silver rod swept through a creature with glowing eyes, which dissolved into black mist mid-leap. Oversized yellow shoes hit the sand with a thump as their owner dropped out of his own leap, the tip of his silver weapon dropping to rest on the ground beside him as his free hand came up to wipe the sweat away from his forehead. A glance around showed him clear white sand and clear blue water to one side and expanses of haphazard wooden construction interspersed with clumps of damp-looking greenery to the other. All clear. Safe.

"Is it just me, or are there more of them every time they come here?" he asked, turning to the girl behind him. Her flowery key-like weapon vanished in a flash of light as she bent over, panting.

"Yeah…" she huffed, chest heaving. She wasn't as used to swinging around heavy bars of metal as he was, as was made obvious by the trembling muscles in her thin arms.

"Here," the boy fished a bottle out of one of the bags strapped to his thighs and handed it to her. She gratefully uncorked it and tipped her head back, taking a long pull of the liquid inside. After a moment, she smacked her lips, gasped for air, and handed it back. The boy took a modest swig and resealed it, stowing the bottle in his thigh-pouch once more. The two teens straightened, much refreshed. The water here was the cleanest and most nourishing of anywhere either of them had ever been, and at least one of them had been to quite a few places.

"Thanks, Sora," the girl smiled.

"You're welcome," Sora sounded distracted. He crossed his arms, foot tapping thoughtfully as his chin sank to his chest. "What do you think they're after, Kairi? It can't just be the hearts of the Keyblade wielders… there've never been this many all at one time before…" Not to say there hadn't been any. Even opening the door to light couldn't rid the universe of all the bad in it. Nothing would ever completely do that. Even so, there seemed to have been an unaccountable number of Heartless attacks recently on their Islands. Most strangely, all of the attacks were on one of the three teens, never the other Islanders.

"Riku thinks it's him," Kairi said somberly. "He thinks he hasn't vanquished the darkness inside of him yet, and it's drawing in all the Heartless."

"That's ridiculous," Sora exclaimed, uncrossing his arms and looking almost offended. "That machine of DiZ's flooded him with light, and he beat it for good! It's got to be something else."

"You can be pretty dense sometimes, Sora," Kairi rolled her eyes. "How do you expect Riku to just act like he's all full of light after all he's been through? Just because _you_ have no inner demons…"

"I get the picture!" Sora waved a hand in front of his face and looked defeated. Was it _his _fault he was at peace with himself and the worlds? "I'll talk to him about it; see if I can't convince him he's not the problem."

"Dense," Kairi repeated with a smile, shaking her head fondly. "You go talk to him. First, though, we should find out what the real problem is. If you try before then you'll just end up convincing him to go hide in a hole for the rest of his life or something. The only reason I can think of for so many Heartless all attacking at once is someone else controlling them."

"That would explain why they aren't going for any of the others," Sora nodded sagely. "It makes sense. But who's left to control them? Ansem—I mean Xehanort's Heartless—is gone, and so is the Organization. Who else can control them?"

"Maleficent?" Kairi suggested. "Could she have survived that huge swarm of Heartless?"

"It's not her." Sora and Kairi spun around at the sudden interruption to see Riku striding towards them across the beach. The two teens shifted awkwardly, both wondering how much of their conversation he'd heard. If he had heard them discussing him, he chose not to say anything about it, and his half-hidden face revealed nothing.

"It's not her," he repeated when he was closer. "This darkness doesn't smell the same at all. It's familiar, though, I just can't place it…"

"Let us know if you do," Sora shrugged. "Till then, I guess we've just got to wait for them to show themselves. Unless the Heartless start attacking other people, we're safer here on the Islands than running around blind through the multiverse."

"That sounds like a logical plan," Kairi said.

"I know," Riku nodded.

"But it came from _Sora_," she continued.

"I _know_," Riku repeated, just as incredulously.

"Shut up, both of you. Why do you always gang up on me?" Sora folded his arms and pouted. Riku simply laughed and reached over to ruffle his hair while Kairi giggled. Sora gave up after a moment and chuckled also, running his fingers through his spikes as if to make sure they hadn't been flattened. There was a flash of light as he dismissed his Keyblade to wherever it went when he was not using it, to wait until he had need of it again. And there was no doubt that he would.

After all, he was the Hero of Light.


	8. 7: Mirror, Mirror

**Kitty: Sorry for the wait, any of you reading this. I'm trying to space the chapters out so that I don't finish all at once while only three or four people are reviewing (if that). On the plus side, this is the chapter where things finally start coming together, and the title begins to make a little more sense. (On a side note: I love the title of this fic. It works on so many levels! I delight in wordplay…)**

**Axel: And I show up next chapter!**

**Kitty: Yes, you do. That's when the yaoi starts. Or, more accurately, the shounen-ai. It'll take a while to get to anything too heated… These things cannot be rushed, you know.**

**Axel: Dammit… You sure as hell don't own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda with that kind of attitude…**

**Kitty: Read, enjoy, and for the love of Akuroku, review!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter VII**

**Mirror, Mirror**

"_Ignorance is bliss."_

—_Anonymous_

"Huh?" 'Princess Zelda' flipped a strand of hair out of her eyes and squinted at Sheik as if he'd grown a second head. "Are you blind or something? I'm not the Princess."

"B-blind?!" Sheik spluttered. "You look exactly like her! Right down to that freckle on your nose there!" But even as he said it, he knew this girl was not Princess Zelda. Had he pointed out such an imperfection to the real Princess, her rebuttal would be swift, pointed, and coupled with a hand brought up to cover the alleged spot. Zelda was a Princess, and therefore practically required to be flawlessly lovely. To her, even such a small, faint mark—inevitable, really, after spending seven years in the desert, even as a lifeless body stuck in a tent—was quite the sore point.

Instead, the blonde girl merely raised on eyebrow and propped a hand on her hip.

"And how would you know how many freckles the Princess has, huh?"

"I have seen her," Sheik shrugged. "It is not so uncommon, is it, for a subject to have seen his sovereign?"

"Maybe not. What _is_ pretty uncommon, though, is a couple of foreigners like you two wandering around Gerudo lands uninvited," the girl rejoined.

"Is it illegal to pass through the desert now?" Roxas demanded, irritated by her suspicious manner. What had he done wrong? Nothing, that was what. And yet here he was, being menaced by a bunch of girls with spears telling him he wasn't allowed to walk across open land. It was ridiculous.

"Roxas," Sheik hissed. "Do not antagonize them." Then, turning to the Gerudo, "My apologies. He is somewhat hot-tempered. In any case, meeting this patrol is quite the fortunate coincidence."

"Is it, now?" the as-yet-unnamed blonde girl questioned. "And what might your business be with the Gerudo?"

"We wish to see Nabooru," Sheik stated. The Gerudo women exchanged a few glances before all bursting into laughter.

"You want to…!" the blonde one leaned on her spear for support, clutching her side and giggling uncontrollably. "That's a good one! Trespassers going in to see Lady Nabooru! Why don't we just hand you the keys to the fortress while we're at it?"

"It is a request from the Hero of Time," Sheik told her. "And all of the Hero's requests are requests from the Princess, are they not?"

"What's your proof?" the girl sobered a bit, straightening and looking him right in the eyes. "I'll need proof you're from the Princess before I let you anywhere near the fortress, much less Lady Nabooru."

"Roxas," Sheik glanced at his companion. "Would you get out our _proof_?"

"Of course," Roxas grumbled, shooting a glare at him. Of course _he_ had to rifle through his stupid, heavy pack with a bunch of spears floating inches from his 'heart'. Nevertheless, he did it, trying to move slowly and smoothly and hoping none of the Gerudo suddenly had to sneeze. He eventually retrieved the thick tome, and held it up so that the leader of the patrol could clearly see the gold seal on the cover.

"This is a book from the Royal Family's personal Archives," Sheik told them. "Inside you will find the Princess's own handwriting. Is that proof enough for you?"

"It's enough to get you into the fortress," the girl conceded, hefting her spear over her shoulder. "Whether or not you see Lady Nabooru is up to the Lady herself, though. Come on, girls, let's get these _men_ inside."

The group moved off. It was not a very long walk to the fortress from their position, Roxas was relieved to discover. The patrol must have been returning there when he and Sheik had shown up in the first place. Also to his relief, the Gerudo chose not to point their spears at the dual Keyblader for the entire walk—though every now and again a barbed tip would dart at him with the double intent of hurrying him up and reminding him who was calling the shots. Roxas's fingers itched for his Keyblades. He would show _them_ a metal rod with a barbed tip… and maybe a few Thundagas to wipe those superior looks off their faces, too…

After a few minutes of hiking across sand (which, Roxas noted, was practically flat and level—odd, in movies it had always been rolling, windswept dunes…), the fortress hove into view. It resembled nothing so much as Lon Lon Ranch, nothing visible from the exterior but a curved sandstone wall. The group marched right up to the huge, barred gates that were the only blemish on the otherwise smooth structure.

"Oi!" the blue-clad blonde girl cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted when they stood before the wooden obstructions. "Desert patrol coming in! You there, Nasuerah?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" a faint, muffled voice called from the other side. "Keep your veil on, Tetra!" A few of the Gerudo in the patrol snickered, and Tetra scowled. Roxas honestly couldn't tell if the jab and laughs were all in good fun or actually meant to show dislike. It was difficult to read people whose faces you could not see.

There came the sounds of scraping and grunting from the doors, and eventually, one leaf swung ponderously outward. As the gap widened, the boys caught sight of a single Gerudo girl (of the red-haired, purple-veiled variety) panting and struggling to move the heavy object.

"That's far enough, Nas," the blonde, Tetra, waved at her impatiently. "We don't need the whole thing open."

"That's why I was only moving one," Nasuerah replied, pausing to swipe an arm across her sweaty forehead. "Who're they? You're bringing men into the fortress?"

"Can't be helped," Tetra shrugged, striding in through the space and into the fortress itself. "They're from the Princess to see Lady Nabooru. Are you lot following or what?"

"Go on," a spear poked the small of Roxas's back. Choking down the urge to snarl, the blond boy moved forward, eyeing the fortress critically. It looked like just a collection of square, brownish stone buildings with narrow holes cut out for windows. Here and there, more veiled and some unveiled Gerudo (though all were red-haired) moved around, doing everyday activities that Roxas, for some reason, was surprised to see them doing. It shouldn't have been all that strange to see a twiggy, preteen girl pinning up bedsheets to a clothesline—after all, the Gerudo were human, too—but somehow, it was.

The two were led down twisting corridor after twisting corridor, weaving in and out of doors until Roxas didn't think he would have been able to find the exit even with the aid of a compass and floorplan.

They soon came to a plain, nondescript door at the end of a hallway. Roxas had not had much time to take in the fortress's aesthetics, but it was clear by this door, if by nothing else, that the Gerudo did not put much stock in superfluous ornamentation. The door, for its part, was carved with a motif of flowering vines, its knob a piece of brass molded to resemble one of the blooms. Far more artistic than anything else in the fortress so far, perhaps, but when Roxas remembered that this door led to the Gerudo _Princess's_ bedroom and compared it in his head to his memories of Disney Castle and The Castle That Never Was, he was more than a little underwhelmed—his ideas about castles notwithstanding. Tetra rapped the backs of her knuckles against the carvings.

"Enter," the voice from within was slightly muffled. Tetra twisted the brass flower and cracked the door open just wide enough for her to slip through, shutting it behind her. Roxas and Sheik waited, staring at the wooden vegetation for some time, unable to separate words from the murmur of muted voices audible behind it.

Eventually, the door swung wide again, and the two Nobodies were ushered in with a few jabs of the Gerudo's spears. It was a good thing, too, for if not for them, Roxas might have forgotten to continue walking.

The room inside was spacious, brown stone, a curtained doorway at the other end presumably leading to the rest of Lady Nabooru's personal chambers. The room Roxas now found himself in was carpeted with plush, brightly-colored rugs woven with intricate patterns. A low table stood on one, too low for chairs, though plump cushions were scattered around it. Braziers in the corners wafted a light haze of sweet-smelling incense over the room. There were no windows, but all was illuminated by a bowl of fire hanging by three copper chains from the ceiling.

On the cushions by the table knelt Lady Nabooru herself. Roxas was surprised to see that she was not much older than he himself. She was practically identical to the red-haired Gerudo guards who had brought him in save for a few key differences. Her ponytail was held back by a large ruby clasp, and her heavily-made-up face was shrouded by no veil. Her clothes were white instead of blue or purple and—most importantly to Roxas—she carried no weapons. She was currently regarding Sheik out of typical Gerudo hawk-eyes, nursing a cup of tea between her hands.

"Princess Zelda?" one thin, red eyebrow rose.

"That's what _he_ called _me_," Tetra scoffed.

"I am not the Princess," Sheik shook his head.

"Will the real Zelda please stand up?" Roxas muttered under his breath, earning himself a swift jab from Sheik's elbow to his ribs. He shut up.

"You may leave," Nabooru told the guards, eyeing Roxas oddly.

"But, my lady…" Tetra began.

"I'll be fine. The last time I saw someone with that face," Nabooru indicated Sheik, "I trusted the person wearing it unconditionally. I don't think it's unwise to do so again. If you're worried for me, Tetra, you may wait outside the door. Now, all of you, go."

The Gerudo bowed as one, Tetra a little more stiltedly than the others, and trooped out. Roxas had the distinct feeling that the blonde Gerudo would shortly have her ear—which, he noticed, was long and pointed like the Hero of Time's, though the other Gerudo's ears were small and rounded—pressed to the door. They were now alone. Sheik led the way to the table, and he and Roxas knelt on the other side, facing the redheaded girl who supposedly commanded the entirety of the Gerudo race. There was a mutual sizing-up on the part of both parties before aught was spoken.

"I heard you carry a message from Princess Zelda," Nabooru said, taking a sip of her tea. "What is it?"

"Actually," Sheik sank back on his heels, placing his elbows on his thighs and settling in comfortably, "what I said was we came at the request of the Hero of Time whose requests most often reflect the wishes of the Princess. I then said that I carried a book from the Princess's personal library with her handwriting inside. Never once did I claim to carry a message from Her Highness."

"Nice," Roxas grinned.

"Clever," Nabooru complimented, her hawklike eyes narrowing. "But what, then, if you don't mind me asking, is your true purpose?"

"We require the help of a Gerudo," Sheik requested. "These books I carry contain vital information, however, they are written in your language, not my own. It is imperative that they be translated with all haste by a trustworthy individual."

"I see," the eyes narrowed further. "In secret, I suppose?"

"If I thought for a moment I could convince you, yes. As it stands, however, you are unlikely not to send a messenger to the Princess at the first opportunity, asking what business I have with her personal Archives. I shall spare you the trouble, Lady Nabooru. We stole them," Sheik told her flatly.

"Should we really be admitting that?" Roxas muttered.

"We have no other choice. If we do not, the Lady will simply send an emissary to Hyrule Castle and discover and report the theft within a few days. Had we tried to procure a translation from a lower-ranking Gerudo without informing Lady Nabooru, we would have shortly found ourselves in a jail cell with the emissary well on its way anyway. Our options are rather limited," Sheik shrugged.

"As usual, you've exhausted all possibilities," Nabooru began, stopped, and started once more. "I can't help but refer back to the last time I saw you, if it really was you I saw then. Who are you, exactly? And you—I've never seen you before."

"I'm Roxas," Roxas introduced himself. "Sheik's friend."

"You're Sheik?" Nabooru turned to Sheik for confirmation.

"I am Sheik," Sheik shrugged. "No more, no less. How I came to be so is a tale I am unwilling to tell even a Sage, Lady, but the last time you saw me I housed the heart of the Princess of Hyrule within me. We have since separated and here I sit, asking for your help."

"Did I speak to the Princess then, who only looked like you?" Nabooru questioned. "Or was it you inside as well as out?"

"Both of our selves resided within," Sheik clarified.

"In that case… I'll translate for you, for the sake of our old acquaintance. More, though, I can't do, and I must send a messenger to the Princess afterwards explaining what's happened here. For the sake of old times, however, I won't send it until you are well beyond our gates," Nabooru drained her teacup and set it aside. "Now, let me see these Archives of yours."

Roxas slid the book across the table to her. Tan fingers briefly caressed the embossed seal before deftly flicking through the pages. Sheik directed her to the relevant chapters. Yellow eyes darted back and forth rapidly, painted mouth pursing into a lavender doughnut.

"This," she spoke slowly, "is a very disturbing thing for you to be studying, Sheik."

"What is it?" Roxas spoke impatiently, his left hand rubbing the back of his right where they rested on his knees. He was tired of waiting. He wanted answers.

"The book speaks of a… a theory, if you will," Nabooru glanced at him and continued reading. "This theory states that as there is light and dark, so everything in the world has an equal force in opposition to it. It goes on to theorize the existence of an alternate Hyrule, filled with the same yet opposite people who fulfill those character traits not exhibited by the people in this one. For example, in that world would live a Sheik who's outspoken and ebullient." When Nabooru's jab failed to elicit a response from the stoic Sheik, she continued, "By this token, there exists an object referred to here as the Mirror Triforce." Roxas's fingers clenched almost painfully around the hidden mark on his hand.

"The Mirror Triforce," Nabooru continued, "is exactly what it sounds like: an upended Triforce whose traits are those opposite our own. Instead of Wisdom, there's Naïveté; instead of Power, there's Dependence; and instead of Courage, there's Fear. Each is no more and no less powerful than its counterpart. The theory also says that if this were true, there must be a force to keep these reflections of reality apart from our own, to keep us in line and safely in balance with each other. The book has named it the Triforce of Naught, because it would be symbolized by the empty space in the center of both Triforces—invisible, intangible, untouchable, but undoubtedly there."

"That's _it_!" Roxas hissed to Sheik, who shushed him hurriedly. Nabooru regarded them both calmly.

"I can see you," she glanced again at Roxas, "clearly take me for a fool, but I am not. By your fidgeting," she glanced at his hands, "am I to infer that this Triforce of Naught has manifested itself within you?"

"Um…" Roxas shifted uncomfortably. Finally, he sighed. "…Yeah."

"That's not a good sign," Nabooru frowned. "The balancer shouldn't make itself known unless it has something in need of balancing. If the Triforce of Naught has appeared… then so has the Mirror Triforce."

"And _I'm_ supposed to do something about it?" Roxas demanded, his voice going high in outrage. "I didn't ask for this damn thing! Hell, I shouldn't even be able to _have_ it!" A slim eyebrow rose at that, and Roxas immediately bit his lip so hard he nearly broke the skin. Oops.

"…I don't suppose either of you is going to explain that remark?"

"No, but I have no doubt that you will leap to your own conclusion after my next request," Sheik sighed, glaring at Roxas out of the corner of his eye. "…Does the book say anything on the subject of a person's heart or… one without?"

"A person without a heart?" Nabooru's other eyebrow joined the first in her hairline. "…I'll see."

"She leaped to a conclusion," Roxas noted gloomily. "I could tell by that hesitation."

"You," Sheik rounded on his friend, "are no longer permitted to speak. Every word you say simply worsens our situation."

"We can't all be William Shakespeare," Roxas grumbled.

"Who?"

"Playwright. So famous everyone calls him _the_ Bard."

"Implying that he was the only one?" Sheik questioned, picking up on the emphasis.

"Implying that he was the only one that mattered," Roxas corrected.

"Distressing as it is to interrupt this scintillating conversation," Nabooru broke in dryly. "But it might interest you to know that there's nothing in this book about hearts."

"You read quickly," Roxas noted with some incredulity.

"I skimmed," the Gerudo Princess shrugged.

"Try this one," Sheik suggested pulling out the other volume they carried and slid it across. There was a long, long stretch of silence while Nabooru rifled through the pages of this newer tome.

"Aha," she finally exclaimed, stabbing her finger at a page. "Here we are. The Princess describes here how she removed her heart and placed it in you, Sheik, because…" the girl's face paled a little and she had to swallow before continuing, "…because you had none of your own."

"That is not entirely the case," Sheik shook his head. "Certainly I possess no heart of my own, but the Princess's technique has been used in the past to insert a heart into the body of one with a heart of their own. The host's heartlessness has no bearing on the procedure."

"Now who's worsening our situation?" Roxas demanded.

"This is a different case," Sheik shot back. "Besides, how much worse do you suppose our situation can get now that she has heard directly from Princess Zelda—as it were—that we are soulless monsters?"

"Heartless, not soulless," Roxas corrected. "And if you still think you're a monster, maybe I should call up some more Dragoons."

"That will not be necessary," Sheik hastily assured him.

"This book won't help you," Nabooru didn't bother with politeness this time before interrupting. "It only speaks of specific cases, such as your… condition. And it doesn't say where she learned the magic she used to put her heart in you."

"I see," Sheik nodded slowly. "You have our thanks." The red-eyed young man placed his hands on the floor and pushed himself to his feet, bowing to the Gerudo once he was up. "But now, if you will excuse us, we must be going. Roxas."

"One minute," Roxas glanced at his friend but turned back to Nabooru. "I'm no expert on reactions so sorry if I'm wrong, but you seemed shocked to find out Sheik is a Nobody."

"Wouldn't you be?" Nabooru countered, her face composed.

"I said shocked—not scared. Not disbelieving. You already knew Nobodies existed," Roxas accused.

"Tetra," Sheik immediately guessed.

"Am I to assume that these 'Nobodies' you speak of are those without hearts?" Nabooru questioned. At their nods, she continued. "Tetra's story is not mine to tell. As Princess of the Gerudo I suppose I could, but I won't betray my friend's trust that way. She'll have to tell you herself _once she's done listening at keyholes_." Roxas jumped at the young woman's sudden change in volume. Apparently, he was not the only one, for there was a sudden knocking noise from the door, akin to someone's skull connecting with the wood.

There was a pause. Slowly, the carved handle rotated. Even more slowly, the engraved door inched inwards.

"You _told_ me I could wait in the hall," Tetra grumbled as she stepped hesitantly inside, rubbing her head ruefully.

_I was right,_ Roxas felt a flash of smugness.

"Will you tell your story, Tetra?" Nabooru asked politely.

"I don't see why I should," Tetra stuck out her lip stubbornly, folding her arms. "They're just a bunch of nosy outsiders."

"We're like you are," Roxas told her kindly. "We don't have hearts, either."

"How… how did you know that…?" Tetra's eyes went wide.

"I don't think I need to be told your story," the Key of Destiny continued. "You see, people like us—Nobodies—are made when someone with a strong heart loses that strong heart. So let me tell you what I think happened. When Princess Zelda put her heart into Sheik, she made you, her Nobody. You appeared somewhere in the desert and, confused, with no memory of how you'd gotten there, stumbled across this fortress, or maybe a Gerudo patrol like we did. Seven years passed, and they gradually accepted you as one of their own, despite the fact that you're obviously Hylian. I bet you even chose your own name, Tetra."

"That is what happened to you, too, is it not, Roxas?" Sheik watched his friend carefully, detecting the nostalgia behind the words. It was not the kind of nostalgia with which old men reminisce on better days, but more the kind with which a war veteran might recount his tale.

"Yeah, except for two key points," Roxas nodded, his eyes gazing past the stone walls they were directed at. "They found me, I didn't find them, and they chose my name for me."

"You're… you're right," Tetra murmured. "That is how it happened, but… this is my home. You're trying to tell me I'm the Princess? I can't believe that."

"You're not the Princess," Roxas denied. "You're the Princess's old body. But you're not her. I believe… that even though we don't have hearts," a hand lifted to cover the left side of Roxas's chest, fisting into the material of his shirt, gaze unwavering, "there's something else inside us that makes us different from our Somebodies. Maybe it's a soul. I don't know. But you can be a person apart from the Princess. You don't have to live in her shadow. You're one of the lucky ones. I'm sorry we had to come here and tell you these things, but in the end, you can still live your life here, free, as just Tetra. I envy that. Just… stay away from Princess Zelda, okay? If you get close to her, you'll be absorbed into her, and become a part of her again. It's one of the best feelings the worlds have to offer… but once it's done, 'Tetra' will become nothing but a memory that Zelda won't even remember."

"I…" Tetra looked stricken. Abruptly, she turned and ran from the room, slamming the door behind her. The three remaining occupants stared at the door for a few moments, sadness in each separate pair of eyes (or single eye, in Sheik's case).

"It's a lot to take in," Nabooru offered by way of explanation.

"You don't have to tell _me_," Roxas sighed. "I wish I'd had someone like me to explain things to me."

"The Organization didn't?"

"The Organization put Axel in charge of educating me," Roxas replied sourly. "His idea of teaching was to say 'life's a mystery you gotta learn as you go, got it memorized?' and then leave me to figure it out myself, laughing when I got it wrong."

"He sounds like a delightful person," Sheik noted.

"You have no idea."

"I must say, you two are an endless source of entertainment," Nabooru laughed. "But again I'm afraid I have to interrupt. You see, the matter of the Triforce of Naught and the Mirror Triforce coupled with your heartlessness… it changes things. I'm sorry, but I can't allow the two of you to leave freely—this has become a matter for all the Sages to ponder. You two must stay the night while I inform the others of our meeting here." The redheaded young woman fished a small, golden bell from the cushions upon which she sat, shaking it to produce a clear chiming noise. At the signal, two veiled Gerudo entered the room, spears at their sides.

"These two will escort you to the guest chambers," Nabooru told them, regret clear in her face and voice. "I am truly sorry."

"Damn it," Roxas swore suddenly, rising to his feet to glare at the Sage of Spirit. "You're just as prejudiced as everyone else, aren't you, and you only learned about us today! What does _that_ say about you, I wonder?"

"Roxas, that's _enough_!" Sheik snapped. He bowed to Nabooru again. "Forgive us, Lady, for not being unduly surprised. Our lives thus far have been characterized by bigotry and broken promises. Tradition is an integral part of Gerudo culture, is it not?" Before any reply could be made, the pseudo-Sheikah had turned on his heel and marched out ahead of the Gerudo soldiers, Roxas close behind him, sending a final azure glare over his shoulder before the door shut, cutting off his view of Nabooru's stricken expression.

The blond Nobodies were ushered down a few corridors, but the walk was not long. They soon reached a plain, uncarved door, which the lead Gerudo began to open before being halted by the sound of approaching footsteps. All four people turned to see a panting Tetra race down the hallway, her face set firmly.

"Roxas," she said, stopping before him and holding out a scrap of parchment. "Here. I'm sorry about before. If you tell anyone anything I will hunt you down and hang you out for the jackals to feast on your eyes." Roxas was left with a piece of parchment and no retort in sight as the Hylian Gerudo turned and pattered away again.

"Let me see that," one of the Gerudo snatched away the paper. "Huh? It's just a bunch of dots. You can keep it." She snorted and handed it back. Roxas examined the parchment as he and Sheik were shut into the room, key turning in the lock with a click. It was just as she had said: a few dots seemingly sprayed randomly across the page.

"I feel guilty," Sheik suddenly announced.

"Huh?" Roxas looked up.

"I feel guilty that we shouted at Lady Nabooru that way. Never once did she speak derogatively to us, and this room is certainly no dungeon, for all that we are locked in. she was simply doing her duty as a Sage," he elaborated. Blue eyes rose to take in the lavish bedroom they now found themselves in. It was a bit like Nabooru's room, except that instead of a table there was a four-poster bed, and the space was illuminated by a thin slit of a window in the far wall.

"When you say it that way…" Roxas glared at the stone floor. "But DiZ thought he was just doing his duty by saving the Hero of Light when he imprisoned me and took my memories before tricking me into integrating. Duty doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."

"That is what you think, is it? Well…" Sheik sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his feet. "Perhaps you are right…" The two sat in silence for a time, not looking at each other.

"Let me see the parchment," Sheik finally broke the silence. Roxas wordlessly handed it over. A solitary red eye took in the pattern of dots, blinking twice as its owner thought deeply. It didn't take long for the inspiration to strike.

"Sheet music," Sheik declared. "Tetra gave us a teleportation song to free us! Now my guilt is twofold…"

"How can you tell it's a teleportation song?" Roxas took the sheet back. It still just looked like random dots to him.

"Part of it is music," Sheik pointed to one column of dots. "This part here, however, is a script used in Hyrule instead of conventional letters that used to be used as a secret code during wartime. Now, though, it is simply a curiosity for children to learn and send messages to each other in with no true meaning."

"Like Morse Code."

"What?"

"Never mind. What does it say?"

"It reads 'The Descant of Desire', which I assume to be the name of a song," Sheik answered. "I do not pretend to understand what desire has to do with our escape, but Tetra would not have given us a song that did nothing to aid that end—or at least, I do not think she would. She seems to be a resourceful type of person, does she not?"

"You aren't reassuring me," Roxas grumbled. "Just whistle the tune so I can try it. Whatever it is, if it doesn't work, we'll just have to use a portal." Sheik sent a brief prayer to the Goddesses for the song to work before whistling out the notes inscribed on the parchment.

Roxas imitated the sounds to perfection. This time it was the second try that called down strings of beaded light to wrap them up and whisk them away with none the wiser except, perhaps, one slim girl around the corner, listening to the fading notes with a small smile.


	9. 8: Familiar Faces

**Axel: Finally! My debut! I can't… Wait a minute. What's this? …You've got to be kidding me.**

**Kitty: Nope! This little monster is twenty-two (count them! TWENTY-TWO) pages in Microsoft Word. In twelve-point Times New Roman.**

**Axel: Wow.**

**Kitty: Wow is right. And this is finally FINALLY where the Akuroku/Shink pairings start to come in. Oh, the anticipation! I'm so nervous!**

**Axel: …This nut doesn't own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda. She DOES own a learner's permit, as of today, but no car yet. Thank God.**

**Kitty: Quiet, you! Everyone else, enjoy! Tell me what you think!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter VIII**

**Familiar Faces**

"_Too many voices, it won't take long_

_Which one's right and which one's wrong?_

_And yours is most likely to be misunderstood_

_Screaming in tongues at the top of my lungs_

_Till I find you and you found me_

_And somehow, I always knew that you would."_

—_Lifehouse, 'Cling and Clatter'_

The castle had once been an imposing place. It had loomed above the surrounding buildings like a beacon, the one recognizable landmark in a place where every corner looked the same as the last. Spiky, threatening, and as hostile as everything else around it, its towers had almost pierced the swirling black clouds above it. These clouds were held at bay only by the heart-shaped moon that hovered above the castle, just out of reach of the towers, as if taunting those who had built it to reach for what they could never grasp.

Now the castle was just a heap of white rubble amidst the black town. The moon still shone with its yellow light, gloating over the fallen structure and the shattered dreams it now represented. The largest chunk of the ruins still bore the symbol of those who had tried and failed to capture the moon—a cross with barbed arrows at each tip except for the bottom, where it divided into two flukes like the blades of a scythe—eerily like the marker on a grave.

From the base of this monumental tomb dropped a steep hill that had once been covered in the black skyscrapers that coated the rest of the world's surface, but was now blasted by the scattered wreckage of the fallen castle. Skyscrapers had toppled, taking their neighbors with them, so that the corpses of mutilated buildings were strewn across the once-empty streets. Interspersed among them were the occasional hunks of white marble, usually at the base of a building with a large portion of its exterior missing, blasted off by pieces of marble like falling stars sent down from the vengeful moon. Sparks flew up in piteous imitation of these stars from the broken, crumpled rectangles of screens that had once glowed brightly on the façades of the night-dark towers.

All this Roxas saw from where the light of the teleportation song had dropped him atop a black skyscraper in the intact part of the city at the base of the hill. Wide azure eyes took in the ruins of a place he had never called home but had lived in nevertheless for a full half of his short life.

_Well,_ he thought wryly, _that's the end of my idea about castles, huh?_

"What is this place?" Sheik wondered, sounding thunderstruck. Roxas abruptly remembered that his companion's home world was only equivalent to the medieval era in terms of technology. The poor boy had never seen a skyscraper in his life, much less an urbanized city such as this one.

Slowly, as if in a daze, Roxas stepped forward, off the edge of the skyscraper and onto a thick steel beam that was one of many connecting the building to the glowing screen on it. He strode across this support as if he'd done it a thousand times before—which he well might have—only stopping once he'd reached the top edge of the thick rectangle. Then, just as slowly, he turned back to Sheik, who was still across the gap, and offered a small, weak smile.

"This… this is the World That Never Was," he answered. "Welcome to the former headquarters of the late Organization XIII."

"Your… home?" Sheik asked, blinking and looking around with fresh eyes. "What a dismal place."

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" Roxas turned back to survey the spread of spiky, obsidian buildings and glowing rectangles like geometric, green fireflies in the darkness. "Though it seems a bit more… haunted than dismal—to me, anyway. Sad, you know? Like an abandoned city filled with ghosts… which I guess it technically is, actually. And just for the record, this place was never my home." He dropped his gaze to the wooden flute clutched in his hand, clenching the instrument in his fist. "Of all the places… why here?"

"You played the Descant of Desire," Sheik was suddenly next to him, having stridden across the metal strut with as much ease as Roxas himself. "You must have desired to come back here on some level, else the song would not have taken us."

"But I _don't_ want to come back here," Roxas jerked his eyes back to the desolate cityscape, angrily shoving the flute into his belt. "I never wanted to see this place again! Practically everything bad that ever happened to me happened here. The Organization… being kidnapped by Riku… betraying my best friend…"

"That last sounds like your own fault," Sheik noted.

"I don't regret it," Roxas shook his head firmly. "If I'd stayed with the Organization I might never have met Naminé or the Hero of Light… even if it did lead to being caught by Riku in the end. What I regret is I never got to tell Axel what I meant."

"Care to elaborate?" Sheik sank down to sit on the edge of the screen, one leg bent to his chest while the other dangled over the edge. Roxas sat next to him, hands flat on either side and both legs over the edge, just like he used to on Twilight Town's clock tower. This time, though, it was a very different town spread before him.

"I told him that no one would miss me if I left," Roxas explained, tipping his head back to stare at the moon. "I mean, it's not like I didn't know I was his best friend like he was mine. I could tell that hurt him. That's what I was _trying_ to do, so that if we ever met again he'd know where we stood: on opposite sides. The thing is… the next time we met, I'd lost my memories. And by the time I'd remembered him again he really was convinced I hated him. And then we fought… and later he died protecting my Somebody. He never found out…"

"Maybe that's the desire the song sensed," Sheik suggested, also looking at the moon. "Closure."

"Yeah, maybe," Roxas sighed. "Except now… we're stuck, aren't we? Unless you know how to play the flute, that song won't take us anywhere else and all of your songs, from what you've told me, will just land us in the middle of nowhere. And by now Nabooru will have told Zelda about our little chat, and all of Hyrule will be on the lookout for us, no doubt with instructions to shoot first and ask questions later."

"It is a bit of a dilemma," Sheik admitted.

"I guess…" Roxas rose and dusted off his knees, looking towards the wreckage of the Castle That Never Was. "I vaguely remember some kind of flying ship my Somebody and his friend used to fight Xemnas in that castle. Maybe if we found it, we could modify it to fly in outer space and pilot it to another world."

"I haven't the faintest idea what you just said," Sheik replied cheerfully. "But you are the expert here. I will trust your judgment and follow your lead."

"Right. In plain English, we're going to those ruins," Roxas pointed. "To look for a vessel sort of shaped like a metal bird. That simple enough for you?"

"I am no simpleton," Sheik gave his friend a baleful look. "Just lead and I shall follow. And do try not to hurt yourself dumbing things down for me."

"Wow," Roxas blinked. "I think I'm rubbing off on you. You just used slang."

"Now you speak nonsense. My patience has worn thin with this idle chatter. Let us move."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Getting down to street level was slightly problematic. There was no door to the building's interior on the roof (for that matter, Roxas wasn't entirely sure these buildings _had_ interiors. He had certainly never been in one). The Key of Destiny didn't dare open one of his famous Portals of Misdirection in this world on the grounds that it was far too close to the darkness for him to be entirely sure where they would end up or even if they would come out at all what with the way his powers had been acting up lately—much to Sheik's not-so-secret relief.

In the end, they jumped.

Roxas went first, hesitating a bit on the edge to gather his nerve first. After a few deep breaths and unsuccessful attempts to banish the image of his own body splattered across the pavement, he ran a few steps forward from the strut, bent his knees, and launched himself into thin air.

The screens blurred into green streaks that flew past Roxas as he plummeted, wind stinging his eyes and arms and tearing at his already-unruly hair. Just like he had envisioned, the ground yawned wider and wider, like a giant mouth opening to catch him when he hit. It was closer now… only a few yards… five yards… four… three… two…

"Aeroga!" Roxas summoned his Keyblades and crossed them before him protectively, feeling the wind whip to life to cocoon him in a funnel as he fell the final yard to the ground. The impact rattled every bone in his body and he lost grip on both Keyblades, which spun out into the darkness with awful scrapes of metal on stone. Roxas lay facedown for a few moments, wishing his mouth wasn't full of asphalt so he could groan. Still, it was a far better landing than he would have gotten had he not cast Aeroga as he had.

Once he had finished feeling sorry for himself—for that particular moment, anyway—Roxas peeled his face off the ground and climbed to his feet. Peering upwards, he could just make out the blue and white figure of Sheik atop the structure, waving wildly. Roxas waved an arm over his head in return, signaling that it was safe for him to jump. A moment later, the blue-white figure was airborne and rapidly growing larger. Roxas flexed his hands, resummoning his Keyblades.

When Sheik was large enough for Roxas to make out his features—which were wide and clearly terrified, even behind the cowl—the blue-eyed youth dove to the side, throwing out Oathkeeper and shouting, "Aeroga!"

Now it was Sheik's turn to lie facedown on the ground, groaning softly. Roxas considerately turned away to survey the area for Heartless while his friend collected himself. There were none, strangely. Roxas blinked, but shrugged it off. Maybe they had all abandoned this world when they had realized it held no one with a heart for them to steal.

When the Hero of Time's Nobody had spat out the last bits of gravel in his mouth, the pair continued onwards. Since the streets were laid out at right angles to each other—even if they were not exactly in a grid pattern—it was relatively easy to navigate them while continuing towards the ruined castle. They passed nothing of note along the way.

Soon enough, they had reached the hill upon which the Castle That Never Was had once stood (or hadn't, if the name was to be believed). Now the going became trickier, as the duo of Nobodies had to maneuver around fallen pieces of black and white rubble, like tiny pawns making their way across a colossal chessboard.

When they finally reached the heap of white marble that marked the grave of the Organization's dreams, Roxas realized a problem. Some of these pieces were as big as the skyscrapers around them. Others, smaller, were the size of Roxas himself. There was no way they could move any of it to get to what might or might not be buried underneath. And there were no guarantees that anything would be buried underneath—or, if it was, that it would be salvageable and modifiable. In hindsight, it had not been a very realistic plan to begin with, albeit the only plan they had.

"Hindsight," Roxas sighed aloud, "is 20/20." He did not need to explain.

"What are we to do now?" Sheik asked of the yellow moon above, sighing as well.

"The only thing we can do is play another one of your songs and hope that wherever it lands us isn't too close to any sort of people," Roxas suggested. "Either that, or teach you to play the flute and find out where it is that you desire most to be."

"I can already tell you where that is," Sheik shook his head. "And you do not want to be there. We would be arrested in a heartbeat. Or—however it is Nobodies measure time."

"We do it in minutes," a new voice spoke. "I mean, how long is a 'beat' anyway?"

"Who's there?" Roxas demanded, bringing out his Keyblades—which he had dismissed to better enable him to clamber over unavoidable marble boulders—and dropping into a fighting crouch. No matter which way he looked, he couldn't see anything but the ruined city. Sheik pulled out his own knives, both boys positioning themselves with their backs to the edge of the pit containing the castle's remains. There was a soft whooshing noise, and five Dusks spun out of nowhere to form a semicircle around the teens, hopping back and forth in their usual fluid, intimidating dance.

"What are those?" Sheik's voice was tight.

"Dusks," Roxas replied, confused. Who would send Dusks against Nobodies? They obviously didn't know him… "Lesser Nobodies. You five, go away," he commanded the dancing Dusks.

"No, my liege," the Dusks' dance increased in tempo, as if agitated to have to refuse. "We cannot, we cannot."

"Someone more powerful must be controlling them," Sheik surmised.

"Who are you?" Roxas shouted. "Show yourself!"

"Ah, not again," the voice groaned. "Are you telling me you lost your memory again, Roxas?"

"You're pretty stupid if you know who I am yet still send Dusks after me," Roxas snapped, though he was beginning to worry. Even lesser Nobodies would still attack him if they were ordered to by someone stronger than him.

"Why must all our meetings start out with such hostility?" the voice cried out dramatically. As it spoke, sharp, tapping footsteps rang from the surrounding stone, and a black figure detached itself from the base of a nearby building.

Tall, twiglike. A splash of blood on obsidian pavement. Two glowing orbs, like leaves of fresh mint.

"You're the one who always starts it, moron," Roxas retorted, though a grin was beginning to spread across his face. "As a matter of fact, even though you always start it, somehow you're always the one getting your ass handed to you, aren't you, partner?"

"What?" Axel put his hands on his hips, indignant. "You must've hit your head again, shorty. The only thing you've ever handed me is orders from the Superior."

"Hand this!" Roxas suddenly dashed forward, between two Dusks that did nothing to stop him. Oblivion vanished in a flash as his fist streaked upwards to slam into his thin partner's gut. Axel doubled over, gasping, as the blond's knee was brought up to crash into the same place a moment later, Roxas's face contorted in fury.

"Now… look…" Axel wheezed.

"I thought you were _dead_, you bastard! Again!" Roxas shouted. "How many fricking times to I have to kill you before you _stop pretending to die_?!"

"That made no sense," the redhead pointed out, still somewhat breathlessly. "Ah! Hey!" he yelled as Roxas's fist connected with the side of his ribcage. "Stop that!"

"You," Roxas growled, "had better start explaining. Now."

"First things first," Axel took a few steps back to avoid his partner's rage. "Who's the ninja?" The circle of Dusks tightened around Sheik, who was watching event unfold before him with considerable confusion and just a bit of amusement. (It was always amusing to see someone like Axel get beaten down by a person half their size.)

"That's Sheik," Roxas introduced him hurriedly. "Sheik, this is Axel, my partner from my Organization days. I told you about him."

"Ah, yes, and so you have," Sheik eyed the rail-thin Nobody before him with new eyes. "I must say, he looks exactly as the sort of person you have described."

"What have you been saying about me behind my back, Roxas?" Axel shook his head, smirking.

"Nothing that isn't true," was the blond's retort. "You can call off the Dusks now. Sheik's one of us."

"Another Nobody?" Axel looked interested. "I hadn't thought there were any left besides me. Well, and you, too, of course, Roxas." He snapped his fingers and the Dusks disappeared in tangles of mist, freeing Sheik to conceal his knives and join them.

"You don't know how wrong you are," Roxas laughed. "Naminé's back, too, and this other one, Tetra, from Sheik's world. That makes five of us."

"Naminé too?" Axel blinked. "You've been busy, my friend."

"I had nothing to do with it," Roxas denied. "I was hoping maybe you could tell us what's going on. And why you're not dead, while you're at it."

"Come on," a black-gloved hand stretched out, a swirling portal appearing at its fingertips. "I'll show you my 'secret base'. We'll talk there."

"Are you sure that is safe?" Sheik hesitated. Axel paused halfway through the portal, turning back to blink over his shoulder.

"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"

"Roxas has not entirely mastered the art of teleportation. Our results have not been entirely satisfactory thus far," Sheik and Roxas glared at each other stubbornly. Axel glanced between the two of them for a moment more before bursting out laughing.

"Aw, poor little Roxie having trouble?" he snickered.

"Can it, tattoo-face," Roxas growled.

"Sure, sure. You and Hamlet there just follow me and try not to drown in your own spit, think you can handle that?" Before a suitable rebuttal could be formulated on either blond's part, Axel was gone.

"You were made to deal with him for an entire year?" Sheik cast his friend an amazed look.

"Yeah."

"I do not believe I will be able to last an entire day," he predicted grimly.

"I'll help you hide the body."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"So, how are you still breathing?" Roxas opened the discussion a few minutes later. The three Nobodies were lounging in Axel's 'secret base', which turned out to be the interior of one of the hundreds of skyscrapers in the City That Never Was (thus proving that they did, in fact have interiors, even if they were inaccessible to those without the power of teleportation). It looked something like what Roxas imagined a wealthy playboy bachelor's penthouse to look like.

One wall was entirely glass, giving them a superbly melancholy view of the city, the others hung with paintings Axel called abstract art and Roxas called junk. The floor was rich, red carpeting. In one corner was a red wood bar, stocked with an array of drinks any nightclub would kill to own. Roxas himself was currently seated on the black leather couch—recessed into a circular dip to one side of the room so that the back was level with the floor—with his feet on the shiny teak coffee table, sipping a Coke and eyeing the plasma flatscreen on the wall before him. Axel certainly knew how to live, despite his claims that he had found the apartment exactly the way it was and merely taken advantage of someone else's good taste.

The man himself was at that moment mixing himself some kind of drink at the bar. Sheik was seated next to Roxas, examining his can of Coke distrustfully.

"So?" the Key of Destiny persisted.

"Well, my diaphragm—that's this muscle in my chest—moves up and down…" Axel began.

"Why didn't you die fending off those Dusks?" Roxas rephrased, irritated.

"You didn't think I'd really sacrifice myself for that runt?" the tattooed man leaned against the bar and took a sip from the liquid in his glass, smacking his lips. "Hell, no. I just let him think I did so that I could do _this_ later and he wouldn't suspect a thing. Do you remember my dying speech? Wasn't it dramatic? I rehearsed that thing a million times beforehand…"

"When you say 'do this', I'm assuming you don't mean get drunk in a penthouse with me and Sheik," Roxas stated.

"Again—hell, no. I thought you'd integrated. What I've been doing is sending all the Heartless I can gather after your Somebody trying to get you out. Frankly, I'm shocked you _are_ out. The last trap I set was a cardboard box with a stick holding it up, a cookie in the back, and a Shadow taped to the inside. I'm that low on ideas."

"Well whatever you did, it didn't work. I appeared in Sheik's world for no reason I can tell, though I think I might be starting to get an idea of it," Roxas frowned. He then related to Axel everything that had happened since he had woken up in Hyrule Field. Sheik interjected every now and then, filling in the history of his world for Axel as well as the events that had occurred while Roxas had been unconscious. The tale took a long time—though time was a difficult thing to tell when the sun never rose and the moon never moved. Axel listened quietly, going through several drinks as he did.

When at last Roxas finished with, "And so then you popped up and you know the rest," there was a long silence.

"Wow. That's a lot to memorize so quickly," Axel shook his head slowly, folding his arms. "You've really been busy while I've been away, partner."

"I had no choice."

"I know, I know. Listen, ninja," Axel looked up.

"Sheik," Sheik corrected.

"Yeah, you. I want to thank you. Roxas can hardly tie his own shoelaces alone. I'm glad there was someone else to make sure he didn't croak the second he woke up," the Flurry of Dancing Flames offered.

"Hey!" Roxas cried out.

"You are welcome," Sheik smiled. Clumsy and rough and insulting as it was, the Hero of Time's Nobody could tell that there was true gratitude behind Axel's thank-you. The redhead obviously cared for his friend, as was obvious to anyone with eyes. After all, hadn't the man admitted to spending the last few weeks—at least—desperately trying to free Roxas from what he saw as nonexistence? No one who truly did not care would do such a thing. And, like his thanks, his every action reflected the man himself: straightforward and no-holds-barred, yet well-meaning—if a bit rough around the edges.

"If we're done insulting my competence," the azure-eyed young man grumbled, sinking down and folding his arms sulkily, "Shouldn't we be talking about what we're going to do next?"

"What _are_ we going to do next?" Axel returned, one eyebrow lifting. "I wasn't aware there was even a 'we' to do anything next."

"So after all that time trying to break me out you're just going to kick back in your penthouse and sip margaritas while I go out risking my neck?!" Roxas demanded, unfolding his arms and sitting bolt upright, scattering red accent pillows with the sudden movement.

"What're you going to risk your neck _for_?" Axel waved one hand expansively. "Remember that line I fed you about life being a mystery? Well, the mystery's solved. You came back because of some religious backwater's holy idol, and now it turns out he's got one, too, so you don't actually need to do anything yourself. We can do whatever we want now, Roxas. The multiverse is our playground. Raise Kingdom Hearts again? Establish ourselves as gods on some Podunk little world? Kill your Somebody? Conquer our own empire? Just name it. We can do _anything_, Roxas."

"No, we can't," Roxas snapped. "And I take extreme offense to half of those examples. Raising Kingdom Hearts wouldn't do jack for me since my heart's goofing off on the Islands, and all it would do is call him up to kill you for good this time and absorb me like a dry sponge. Killing the Hero of Light might endanger all of us someday, not to mention it's completely unnecessary. And conquering our own empire would just do the same thing raising Kingdom Hearts would."

"They were just examples, Rox, don't be so uptight. What do you propose we do?" Axel took another sip of his drink, completely calm.

"I propose we first take Sheik back to his world," Roxas turned to the red-eyed young man beside him. "You do want to go home, right?"

"Of course. I must aid my country against this Mirror Triforce. It is my duty as the bearer of the Triforce of Naught," Sheik said nothing about Roxas bearing the same Triforce, but the boy winced nevertheless at the implied 'and your duty, too'. "The fight against that will take priority over the search for me. And besides, I have had years of practice hiding. I will miss you, however."

"Me, too," Roxas grinned. "But I'll see you again. Like Axel said, we can do whatever we want now. That includes coming to visit."

"I will look forward to that," Sheik smiled back.

"It's a promise," Roxas lifted his right fist, forearm at right angles to his upper arm, which was parallel to the floor. Sheik eyed the odd posture for a moment before slowly lifting his own arm to place it against Roxas's.

"A promise," he echoed.

"I think I might start barfing," Axel put in.

"You should have by now," Roxas turned, eyes blazing. "Just how much alcohol do you plan on drinking, anyway? You should be stone drunk."

"Huh?" Mint green eyes blinked at the half-empty glass in his hands. He placed the drink on the bar's surface and pushed it away with the flat of his hand. "You're right. I hadn't noticed. I've got a high tolerance."

"Are Nobodies affected by drink?" Sheik questioned curiously. "That does not seem in keeping with the usual image of powerful magical beings."

"Hey, contrary to the name, cast-off bodies are what we _are_," Axel gestured to himself. "That means we've still got all the perks of bodies such as bleeding, eating, sleeping, breathing, thinking, and, yes, getting hammered."

"Ham—"

"Slang for drunk," Roxas translated almost before the blue-clad Nobody had even begun his question.

"Ah."

"And while we're on the subject of what our bodies need," Axel straightened up and strode over to the couch. "I think it's bedtime for all little rugrats. We can take the ninja back to his world first thing in the morning and figure out what we're going to do from there, sound good?"

"All except the part where you call me a rugrat," Roxas growled.

"You're two years old. I call 'em like I see 'em."

"Screw you," was the Key of Destiny's eloquent response. "I'm going to sleep. Good night." So declared, the blond teen threw himself backwards so that his head was pillowed on the arm of the couch.

Sheik, meanwhile, kicked a few of the many red pillows to the floor, where he slid in amongst them, placing his untouched Coke atop the coffee table. Axel hopped down onto the couch a few inches beyond Roxas's sneakers—which the boy had kicked off just moments after making himself comfortable—and clapped twice, extinguishing the overhead lights. He leaned back, showing no signs of sleeping just yet.

And he didn't, not for a long time. As he sat there, alternately watching Roxas's sleeping figure, the moon, and the muted television, he tried to decide whether or not he was entirely happy about the fact that life would most likely get much, much livelier from there onward, now that the blue-eyed blond was back in his life.

Sheik, for his part, couldn't sleep at all. The television, even muted—or, perhaps, especially muted—unnerved him. The plush carpet and plump pillows were far too comfortable for him to forget that he was sleeping in a stranger's home on a world far away from the only one he'd ever known. And the flickering lights every time a commercial came on or Axel flipped the channel played havoc with his sensitive vision, making slumber an impossibility. Finally, he gave up all pretenses, sitting up and addressing the red-haired man, his eyes on Roxas.

"He is truly asleep?"

"Yep," the Flurry of Dancing Flames gave no indication that he was surprised Sheik was still up.

"In that position?" Sheik asked incredulously. "The couch is _curved_." And so was Roxas. The boy's mouth was wide open, though no snores issued forth, one hand flung up over his head, the other dangling off the edge so that his wrist rested on the floor. His spine was curved sideways with the bend of his bed, legs slightly tilted so they could bend, too.

"Yep," Axel agreed again, this time elaborating. "I can't tell if the kid's just flexible or if we should treat him for scoliosis." He glanced at the subject of their conversation, eyes reflecting flickering blue light from the screen on the wall. Sheik watched them both, his own eye glinting in the darkness.

"He called you his best friend," Sheik began.

"I'm touched."

"You must truly care for him, to spend so much effort on his resurrection," the boy persisted.

"You can stop fishing, you know, I get what you're implying," Axel sent him a brief grin that was soon replaced by a thoughtful look.

"Do you?"

"You think it's more than just 'friends'," Axel guessed. Sheik did not deny it. Green eyes turned once more to the sleeping Roxas, wistful. "You're wrong, though. I wish… but he's not like that, you know? He's got that girlfriend of his—Naminé. If you met her, you must have seen it."

"He cares for her, yes," Sheik nodded. "But I think you are the one who is mistaken. We are always more open with our affection for those who we see as family or friends."

"What would you know about it?" the redhead mumbled, almost defensively.

"Do not think you have the corner market on concealed affection," Sheik returned, just as quietly. Then, seeming to change the subject, "Do you remember how we came to this world in the first place?"

"You played some song that teleported you," Axel recalled, snorting. "A flute! I never would've pegged him as the musical type."

"The song he played was the Descant of Desire," Sheik elucidated. "It takes the player where they desire most to be. And it took Roxas to you."

"That so? Well, well, well…" Axel murmured. Abruptly, he switched off the television, throwing the remote down on the table. "You should get some sleep, Hamlet. Busy day tomorrow."

Sheik obediently lay down once more, his cowl hiding the small smile that curved his lips. He was sure that he had given the redhead something to think about that night. This time, without the light from the TV, sleep came swiftly to the tired Nobody.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning, Roxas was woken by something thudding into his stomach, jerking the boy to wakefulness so suddenly that he fell, flailing, from the couch.

"Ow! That hurt!" the blond young man snarled, scrambling onto all fours and glaring about for the source of the projectile as well as the projectile itself. It turned out to have been red cardboard tube capped on either end with metal circles and emblazoned with a mustached cartoon face. Smoldering blue eyes picked out the culprit where he lounged at the other end of the couch, munching on chips from his own bag.

"It's a can of _Pringles_, Rox," Axel rolled his eyes. "They couldn't have hurt that much. And now you probably broke all of them."

"Why'd you throw chips at me?" Roxas plopped back down where he had been sleeping, peeling off the lid and popping a few of the snacks into his mouth, crunching loudly.

"Breakfast. I'm gonna have to find a new penthouse soon. This one's running low on chips and booze," Axel shrugged in response to his friend's look. "What? They were the only food or drink in this place to begin with."

"What are they?" Sheik spoke up from where he leaned against the coffee table, examining a single chip from all angles like a scientist studying a new species of plant.

"Salted potatoes fried in grease, I believe," Roxas answered, stuffing another handful into his mouth.

"Isn't that fries?" Axel wondered.

"I thought they were made the same way."

"How are they all stiff, then?"

"Do I look like a chef to you?" Roxas demanded. "Just eat them, Sheik. They aren't the healthiest, but they're all we've got. And they're pretty damn tasty, too." At his urging, the pseudo-Sheikah cautiously popped the chip into his mouth, crunching it thoughtfully. There was a moment of silence.

Wordlessly, Sheik reached for another.

"So, as soon as we've all finished pigging out on health food," Axel slurred around a mouthful of Lays, "how're we gonna get Hamlet back to his world?"

"I'll play a teleportation song to put him down wherever he wants," Roxas outlined. "You wait here, Axel."

"Why?"

"Once I've got him where he needs to be, I'll play the Descant of Desire and warp back here," Roxas finished. "It'll only take me back here, though, if you're here, too, Axel." He shifted uncomfortably as he said it, avoiding the redhead's laughing green eyes.

"Sounds like a plan," was all the Flurry of Dancing Flames said. "One thing, though…" Gloved fingers snapped, and a Dusk whirled into being just inches away from Sheik's leg, causing the blond youth to start violently and scoot away.

"You, find Roxas a proper flute," Axel ordered. He reached over and snagged Roxas's instrument, tossing it to the lesser Nobody. "Looks like this, only metal." The Dusk assented and vanished.

"Think it'll find one?" Roxas asked doubtfully. "I don't think they're smart enough to understand 'like this only not'."

"It'll be fine," Axel waved a hand carelessly. "The one thing they're good at is finding things."

The next few minutes were broken only by the crunching and rustling of the three young men consuming their respective packages of chips. Sheik found it very odd, to sit here eating this foreign food, staring out the window at a starry sky and bright moon while his internal clock told him it was early morning.

His musings were interrupted suddenly by quiet strains of ghostly music that floated through the penthouse. As the notes grew louder, strings of beaded light dropped from the ceiling and began to swirl in a circle in the center of the room, surrounding a blurry shape that was rapidly becoming clearer.

"It is a teleportation song!" Sheik exclaimed, leaping to his feet, scattering pillows and chips.

"Damn it!" Roxas swore, also leaping to his feet. Axel vaulted over the back of the couch, flames erupting around his right hand, which he held away from his body as he darted across the room to whirl around, back to the wall beside the appearing figure.

The figure soon took the shape of a familiar blue-eyed blond young man clad in a green tunic and long, pointed hat. When the light had disappeared, he stowed the ocarina he had been playing in his pocket and began to step forward, eyes on the defensive forms of Sheik and Roxas.

He was brought up by a pricking at his throat. Startled blue eyes slid downwards to see a silver spike at his windpipe—one of many around the perimeter of a red metal chakram held in the hand of a smirking man with wildly vivid green eyes and teardrop tattoos on his cheeks.

"And who," the redheaded man said quietly, "might you be?"

"The Hero of Time," Roxas answered instead of the green-clad youth, crossing his arms and glaring. "We told you about him, remember? What are you doing here?"

"You are still wanted you know," Link felt compelled to point out.

"You gotta have a warrant before you arrest anyone in my home, kid," the tip of the spike pressed harder into Link's skin, making him regret the comment. "Or, you know what? How bout I just kill you instead?"

"Don't!" Sheik said sharply, taking a step forward and lifting his hand as if to halt the chakram physically.

"Ah, yeah, you two are buddies, aren't you?" Axel remembered. "Still, I can't let you walk away from here alive. It would get seriously irritating if you kept coming after Roxas."

"I'm not here to arrest or kill anybody," Link spoke up quickly. "Princess Zelda sent me here…"

"I suppose she told you about my history with her?" Sheik broke in.

"Yeah, she did. I'm sorry," Link's eyes dropped.

"Sorry that she tried to kill me, or sorry that she did not succeed?" Sheik demanded harshly. Blue eyes whipped up again, shock written across his face.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, so she left out that part, did she? What did you suppose happened to me in the Temple of Time when she revealed herself to you?"

"She wasn't trying to kill you! She put us back together! Her magic reunited us!" Link exclaimed. "But… you came back…" Sheik jerked back as if he'd been slapped, his expression thunderstruck. Roxas put a concerned hand on his friend's shoulder, which was shrugged off immediately as the blue-clad youth dropped to the couch, staring blankly at the floor, his mind in turmoil. Roxas looked helplessly between the two Hylians, and his partner took the cue.

"So you know what we are, too, huh?" Axel dropped his arm, dismissing his weapon with a sizzle of fire.

"Princess Zelda told me Sheik was once part of me, but my entrance to the Sacred Realm tore him away," Link eyed the man warily. "Are you saying you're like him?"

"We're called Nobodies," Axel offered. "As a whole, anyway. Personally, I'm called Axel. A-X-E-L, got it memorized?"

"Uh, sure. I'm Link," Link introduced himself.

"I know all about you. Roxas tells me you kicked his ass. Congratulations," Axel grinned.

"Uh…" the blond Hylian searched for a response, but came up empty. "…Thanks?"

"Look, why don't you just tell us why you came—if it's not to arrest or kill us—so you can leave?" Roxas said aggressively, glancing at his unresponsive friend.

"Have a Pringle," Axel offered solemnly.

"Uh…" Link blinked at the redhead before deciding to ignore him and turning his attention back to Roxas. "I came because Nabooru told the other Sages about your Triforce, and what its coming means for Hyrule. She sent me to fetch you back by whatever means necessary."

"I don't think you'll make much progress against all three of us at once," Axel noted. "Perhaps you should have brought backup."

"Not by force!" Link shook his head rapidly, his hat flapping. He stopped after a moment to look squarely into Roxas's eyes. "Name something. Anything. The Princess is willing to give you anything you could ask for if you'll just come help us. We _need_ you. The Mirror Triforce… it's too strong for us to beat by ourselves. We're only two of three—we don't have our full strength. But with you…"

"It does not work that way," Sheik spoke up, not looking at his Somebody. "The Triforce of Naught is a balancer. It cannot take sides, and it cannot replace one of the Triforces. Its very power comes from the two forces in opposition—its job is to ensure those forces remain equal. It can no more destroy the Mirror Triforce than Lord Rauru can destroy your own Triforce. It is simply impossible. No more, no less."

"Nothing is impossible!" Link clenched his fists and raised his voice, addressing Roxas, not Sheik. "It came to you, didn't it? You can choose how you wield it, then! I came here alone because I wasn't scared—but not because my Triforce _made_ me unafraid, because I didn't think you would kill me without at least hearing me out first. It doesn't control me. It didn't come to me to make me courageous, it came to me because I already was courageous! But if I hadn't come here, if I'd brought others with me as 'backup', it wouldn't just leave me and find someone braver. Did Ganondorf's Triforce go into me after I'd beaten him and proven I was more powerful? No. The Triforce doesn't control your actions, and it doesn't abandon you for making the choices you think are right. It chose you as you are, not as you were at one particular moment or how you are sometimes. It won't leave if you decide to help us. It will still give you its power."

"…!" Now it was Roxas's turn to jerk back. He, though, rebounded immediately and came back shouting. "How dare you come here telling me that? I have no obligation to you or your stupid Triforce! I don't _ask_ for these damn sentient objects of power to choose me, I just get them because someone else is unavailable at the time. I don't have any power of my own—nothing I have is original, it's just a shadow of everybody around me! I refuse to live my life as second choice to everybody else! Don't you dare come in here saying 'since he won't help us, I guess you'll do', because I won't be Fate's goddamn understudy. I won't do it. _I won't do it_."

"Then you'll never _get_ your own power! You can't make yourself your own person if you refuse the choice to follow your heart," Link said angrily.

It was as if he'd dropped a bomb into the middle of the room.

"_When did you ever have to make yourself your own person_?!" Roxas yelled. "You were born yourself, and you'll die yourself! All you have to do to be you is _be_! _Exist_! We don't have that luxury! And 'follow my heart'?! Following that damn kid is what makes me his shadow! He'd be off after your harebrained war in a heartbeat. So I won't. I'm following my own feelings—no matter where they come from—not his. My actions are the only things that set me apart from him now. Because my magic, my face, my memories, Naminé, my weapons, even my goddamned _name_ are all just pathetic imitations of _him_!"

"I think it's time for you to leave," Axel flexed his hands and stepped forward menacingly. "Get out before I do something Roxas will regret later, you filthy _Somebody_."

"…Fine…" Link glared at both of them. "I guess Ruto was right to tell me this would be a waste of time. What did I expect heartless nobodies like you to do, anyway?" He turned on his heel, reaching for the ocarina in his pocket with the intent to warp away before one of them finally lost it and cut his head off.

"Wait."

Link paused and half-turned back. Sheik rose from where he had been sitting, still facing away from the Hero of Time, and began to speak.

"I will go instead. Hyrule is my home and I cannot sit idly while it is threatened, whatever Roxas may think. If I can save my kingdom, the people in it… I do not care if I walk in the shadow of my Somebody," he declared softly. The words were almost deafening in the silence the shouting match of moments before had created.

"I appreciate the thought, but what could you do against the Mirror Triforce?" Link hesitated, worried the fiery teen in the corner might take his question the wrong way. Surprisingly, Roxas remained silent.

In answer, Sheik lifted his left hand, the back facing Link so that the Hylian could clearly see the Triforce burned into the skin.

"I, too, bear the Triforce of Naught. My theory is that I bear the side of Hyrule's Triforce, while Roxas bears the side of the Mirror Triforce. Apart, we have only half of our true power, but together, we balance everything. It is in this spirit as well as by my own desires that I will use this power to combat the Mirror Triforce."

"I see," Link nodded slowly. "…I don't like it, though, what you said about walking in my shadow. I don't want to be the one who takes your 'self' from you."

"But you don't mind if someone else does it," Roxas put in sourly.

"I do mind," Link glared. "I just don't think sitting around whining about how unfair life is will solve anything. It won't make you your own identity. You've got to do something yourself."

"I've _done_ something!" Roxas burst out. "I joined Organization XIII and stole hearts, but all they said was 'Oh, he's just the Hero of Light's shadow, what else did you expect'! I betrayed the Organization and went searching for who I was, and then it became 'he's feeling the influence of his Somebody now'! No matter which way I go, no one sees anyone but him, him, _him_! Nobody knows he's your Nobody, and that's why nobody connects everything he does back to you. But all it took was for Riku to see my face before he decided I was worth nothing because I wasn't _him_. All it took was for Naminé to see me and decide we were meant to be together because I wasn't _him_ and she wasn't _her_. No matter what I do, it will never achieve anything if everyone just looks at me and sees him."

"You just haven't been doing things in the right places," Link told him with a smile. "Please, come back to Hyrule with us. If you defeat the bearers of the Mirror Triforce, you'll be a hero, like me. You both will. No one in Hyrule knows whoever _he_ is. They can't judge you based on him. They'll only see you."

Roxas looked away. He looked out the glass wall of Axel's penthouse at the yellow moon outside. It floated there, not looking back. Not taunting. It was only a glowing rock, after all was said and done, no matter what it was shaped like. It had nothing to do with those who attached meaning to it.

"…Fine. I'll go back. I was going to start a new life anyway; your world is as good a place as any," Roxas turned back, his face a mixture of many emotions. "Look, about what I said before…"

"Don't worry about it. You were upset. I'm sorry about what I said, too," Link rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "But… one question?"

"Shoot."

"Who is this… person… you keep talking about? The one you were torn away from, right?" Link queried.

"I think it's time someone got a lesson on Nobodies," Axel laughed.

"Yeah, that's him. My Somebody. I guess you could say he's you, in the same way I'm Sheik. He's a Hero chosen by higher powers, too… the Hero of Light," Roxas related.

"And before you ask, don't," Axel added. "I have no idea who my heart is—was. Don't really care to find out, either. Whoever they are, they're long dead. All that matters now is one tiny detail you're all forgetting."

"What?" All three blonds chorused at once, glanced at each other, and grimaced.

"These Triforces are equal and opposite, right? _Equal_. So even by replacing one Triforce with another, you're still not strong enough to beat them. Not to mention you don't even know where they _are_," the Flurry of Dancing Flames pointed out.

"What else can we do?" Link spread his hands. "We can only fight back with the resources we've got."

"Refresh my memory, what was the deal with this third guy again?"

"He tried to take over Hyrule," Sheik explained. "The Hero of Time defeated him and the Sages locked him up in the Eternal Realm."

"Well in that case… why don't you get him to help?" Axel suggested. Link and Sheik both blinked at him before simultaneously snorting.

"He's _Ganondorf_!" Link said as if that explained everything. "He'd never agree to help us unless there was something in it for him, too."

"There is something in it for him," Axel pointed out. "A threat to his power is eliminated, and he gets parole. You could even let him out entirely. What could he do once Roxas and the ninja are on your side? You could thrash him, no sweat!"

"The ninja?" Link repeated incredulously. Sheik flushed, grateful for his concealing cowl.

"A nickname. Pay it no mind."

"That's what I can do!" Roxas snapped his fingers, an idea striking him. "I'm the balancer, right? I'll be the neutral mediator at your negotiations. As for afterwards… I think it's time Sheik learned one of the few perks of being a Nobody, don't you think, partner?"

"What's that?" Link wanted to know.

Just then, a white shape corkscrewed out of the far wall, spinning and dancing its way to Axel, where it became still. Link stared. It looked vaguely humanoid, albeit far too thin and flexible, and with points at the ends of its limbs instead of hands or feet. Its head was flat and cylindrical, the top bearing a cross-like symbol and the front featuring a wide zipper that, when open, created a mouthlike hole. Down its sides ran two dark strips down which beads of light traveled. It held out its pointed arms, two long, thin objects balanced across them.

"Ah, yes. Here you go, partner," Axel took up the objects and handed one off to the shorter blond. He pocketed the other. "Your flute." This flute was the kind Roxas was used to: long, shiny metal with hinged flaps over the holes. He gave it a few experimental puffs, pleased when his fingers easily fell into their places, far more naturally than they had on the wooden one.

"Thanks."

"_This_ is the perk," Axel told Link. Then, to the Dusk, "Good work. Now I need you to go get two more coats like the one I'm wearing, got it? Go."

"It shall be done, my liege," the Dusk whirled away.

"Why the coats?" Link questioned.

"They protect the wearer from succumbing to darkness," the man explained. "Now, I'm just going with the assumption that wherever you've got this guy locked up, it's not all full of sunshine and rainbows, right? The coats will keep us from becoming like that lovely little thing that just came through. Plus, they're traditional."

It did not take the Dusk long to return bearing the requested garments draped across its arms. This time, Link watched it with new interest. This thing… this thing had once been a person just like him? It didn't seem possible.

"If that thing used to be a person…" he began, "why is it… like it is now? All white and… insentient?"

"The darkness warped them," Roxas said, shoving one arm through the coat Axel had given him. "They weren't weak enough to disappear, but they weren't strong enough to keep their old forms, either. The same sort of thing happened to us, to a lesser degree. For example, I'm blond and have freckles, while my Somebody is a brunet without them. Sheik has red eyes and tan skin where you're blue-eyed and pale. We can only pray the darkness warped Axel beyond recognition, for his poor Somebody's sake."

"Ouch, Rox, it burns," Axel smirked. "And I know burns."

"And they are not insentient," Sheik put in, zipping his coat up to its neck. "They are capable of independent thought, else how would they have found a flute for Roxas, or even speak?"

"They speak? That must be freaky," Link shuddered at the thought of a voice coming from that zippered, lipless mouth.

"It spoke twice just now," Sheik eyed his Somebody oddly. "Once to show it understood its orders and once again for the same purpose when it was dismissed."

"Somebodies can't hear lesser Nobodies," Axel resolved the issue. "Nice look, by the way. You could be our Number XIV."

"The Organization's dead, dumbass," Roxas smacked his partner. "Don't go recruiting new members."

"How did the members tell one another apart when their hoods were up?" Sheik asked, fiddling with the chain across the chest of his coat.

"Look down," Axel replied, grinning. "It's like our own secret language. Big sneakers and straight hem meant Roxas. High-heeled boots and straight hem was Larxene. Boots and flared hem is yours truly. Flared hem and regular shoes was Demyx. Straight hem, regular shoes, but high zipper is Xigbar. And if the hem was straight, the shoes plain, and the zipper at standard height, there was a fifty-fifty chance of getting Saïx or Xemnas, since neither one had any individuality, but no one dared point it out."

"Are we ready yet?" Link asked impatiently. "We should get going before the Sages send a troop of soldiers after me."

"So you _did_ have backup!" Axel pointed triumphantly.

"Yeah, yeah, celebrate later when I don't have to listen to it," Roxas told his partner. Then, to Link, "Where exactly in Hyrule are we going? Song or portal?"

"We're going to the Temple of Time," Link replied.

"So play the Prelude of Light," Sheik added. Roxas lifted his new flute to his lips, feeling a bit like he was playing a hollow icicle, so cold was the metal pressed to his palms. It must have been sitting in this abandoned city for a long time…

The song whisked all four men out of the penthouse and away into the sky. The city was left as they had found it, empty and silent. And above all loomed twin reminders of the folly of those who wished to tame that which humans cannot understand.


	10. 9: Revelations

**Kitty: This update is dedicated to William Bexley, who is an awesome reviewer! (Forgive me, I tried to return the favor, but I don't know Yu Yu Hakusho… or Spanish ) Also it's in part because I got a new car! Well, technically it's used, but… It's a yellow Nissan Sentra. I love it. And if I hear one more goddamn Bumblebee joke, I will go on a homicidal rampage. (I used to like Transformers… -.- And the car is named Sunstreaker. Not Bumblebee.)**

**Axel: Okay, listen up, people. As happy as you all are to see me, it's not going to last. In two chapters (including this one) this story's gonna sorta-almost switch over from Roxas and me to those Islands brats. We'll still be here, they'll just take up most of the focus since not much is going on in our lives right now. **

**Kitty: That's right. And, finally, I couldn't decide on a quote, so this chapter gets two. Read the first one carefully. ~_^ I don't own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda. Enjoy!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter IX**

**Revelations**

"_There's a time for talk, and there's a time for action, and this is one of those times."_

—_Krypto, 'Destroy All Humans'_

"_I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective."_

—_Peasant Woman, 'Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail'_

Roxas's second visit to the Temple of Time was nothing like the first. For one thing, sunlight now streamed in through the windows, lighting the place up so that it gleamed even whiter than it had in the moonlight. The floating gems in their gold casings were even brighter as well, glittering and throwing colored light onto the pale marble around them. For another, the great doors behind the pedestal upon which the jewels hovered were open, revealing another chamber behind the first one.

It was to this room that the Hero of Time led them. His boots raised deafening echoes off the walls. Roxas followed with slightly less commotion, while Sheik and Axel hardly made any noise at all.

"Nice place," Axel whistled. "And Roxas called my penthouse ostentatious."

"You're supposed to _reverent_ in a cathedral, moron," Roxas returned.

"You two have an interesting dynamic," Sheik noted.

"Shush," Link hushed them all. He entered the Temple of Time's second room ahead of the rest of them, halting in the doorway at the request of a Hylian soldier who spoke quietly to the blue-eyed Hero for a few moments. Roxas couldn't make out what the soldier said, but was sure Link's reply was, "What?! Why? She can see us standing right here—I'm looking at her now! See? She's snickering!" The soldier said something else, looking stern, and Link gave in. He turned back to his companions, grimacing.

"He's _announcing_ us," he said. "Goddesses, I hate politics."

"How's he going to announce a bunch of people he doesn't know?" Roxas wanted to know. His question was answered moments later by the soldier's echoing words.

"The Hero of Time and entourage to see the Princess!"

"E-_Entourage_?!" Roxas managed to growl through clenched teeth. An angry flush began to rise in his face. "Like we're his _groupies_…?!"

"Oh, God, now they've gone and done it," Axel sighed. "Calm down, shorty, it's not like we care what some puffed-up princess thinks about us, right?"

At that moment, a girl's voice rang out.

"Send them in."

The group was waved inside by the Hylian soldier, who resolutely ignored the twin sapphire glares of Link and Roxas as they passed.

The second room was about the same size as the first, though very different. It was made of the same white marble veined with delicate silver (Roxas thought that somewhere in Hyrule there must be a _gigantic_ hole in the ground where a white marble quarry had once been.) The walls were plain and unadorned except for a single window high on the wall that beamed light down like a spotlight.

This spotlight highlighted a slightly raised hexagonal dais in the center of the room. Around this dais's perimeter appeared to be several foreign circular symbols, only a few of which Roxas could see from this angle. In the center of the dais was an even smaller dais with a Triforce inscribed on it. In the center of the Triforce was a small block of marble, almost a doorstop, inscribed with yet another Triforce. What made this doorstop-block special, though, was clearly the blue-handled sword sticking out of it like the sword from an old fable Roxas had once heard.

Next to the sword on the dais stood a pretty girl. Roxas's first impression was that she kind of looked like Naminé, but she didn't really. Their hair and eye colors were the same, and they were both pale-skinned, but the resemblance ended there. This girl had a nose and ears like Link's, like Tetra's. (Roxas squinted, and could just make out a faint freckle on her nose. He smirked.) She wore an elaborate gown that was all lilac silk with gold shoulder-guards that were almost like armor, and a blue apron-like thing inscribed with the quickly-becoming-tiresome motif of a Triforce as well as the Royal Family's crest.

"Your Highness," Link bowed when he reached the edge of the dais. Sheik followed his lead. Roxas crossed his arms and thrust his chin forward stubbornly. Damned if he was going to bow to a girl the same age he was, Triforce of Wisdom or no Triforce of Wisdom. Axel, too, remained upright. Oddly, the Princess seemed to approve more of the ex-Organization members' actions than she did of the Hylians'.

"You two, stop that," she commanded, but gently. "I have told you time and again, Link, to drop the formalities when we are alone."

"We aren't alone," Link jerked his head at the guards at the door. "Seriously, tell the people who'll _listen_ to drop the formalities, because having my name shouted to a room that holds one person who's looking right at me is just a little ridiculous."

"It is traditional, and despite what it seems, this is a diplomatic meeting," Zelda reminded him. She turned her attention to the Nobodies. Their identical garb seemed to throw her for a moment, but she recovered with the quick, easy grace of an experienced politician. "Greetings to all of you. I have heard of you, Roxas, from Link, though I do not know _you_…"

"The name's Axel…" the redhead began. The rest of his usual introduction was cut off by a swift kick to his shins, courtesy of Roxas. Zelda gave the two of them an odd look before continuing.

"I hope for us all to meet on better terms than our previous encounters, such as they were…"

"There is one factor that must be determined before I, personally, can say how much better the terms of our meeting are," Sheik spoke quietly. Though it was difficult to tell with half of his face covered, the red-eyed Nobody appeared to be withholding some great emotion. "I have heard from the Hero, but I must hear it directly from you to believe it. Princess… on that day in this Temple seven years ago… did you kill me?" His voice sank to a whisper on the last words, as if he were rethinking his decision to ask. It was therefore a stark contrast to Zelda's next words, which were uttered in a kind of half-shout that echoed off the marble.

"No, Sheik!" A spasm of shock and horror crossed Zelda's face, and her hands flew to clasp under her chin as she shook her head, looking so earnest and genuinely upset that even Axel—the jaded cynic—thought she was being sincere. "I would never do that! You were—are—my best friend besides Link, you know that. You _knew _that. I thought that surely you had heard me planning, had known what I was going to do, and the fact that you hadn't objected was proof that you agreed. Now that I have had time to look back upon it—and perhaps a little help from my Triforce—I see that your mind was preoccupied. It always had been, ever since the Hero's journey had started, ever since it became our task to aid him. I am sorrier than I can express in words that you thought I had betrayed you for seven long years…"

Sheik and Roxas glanced at each other. Sheik appeared to have lost the ability to speak temporarily, so the task fell to Roxas to correct her.

"Um… about that… you see, Sheik hadn't been around for those seven years," Roxas timidly spoke up, clearing his throat slightly. Not because he was awed or intimidated, but because he felt terribly out of place among all these fancy speeches and flowery Shakespearian that everybody seemed to talk in. "Whatever you did to him that day, he really disappeared. You say you integrated him back into Link?"

"Yes," Zelda nodded.

"Well, he went. But just a little while ago, he reappeared, just like he had appeared the first time, only this time it was in Hyrule Field for no apparent reason," Roxas related. "I did the same thing. I'm like Sheik—a heartless being that was torn away from his original. But I integrated with my original as well, not that long ago. I appeared in the Field, too, for no reason I could see. And I had this Triforce."

"And so you stole the Archives in an attempt to understand what it was and why you had come back," Zelda filled in the blank. "I have thought long on why Sheik would have returned."

"Is it not because I was chosen to wield half of the Triforce of Naught?" Sheik questioned, his voice slightly strained. Though nobody but he himself knew it, Sheik was in the middle of fierce inner turmoil… mostly because of the fact that he felt no inner turmoil whatsoever. It was just so easy to fall back into the pattern of trusting Zelda, helping Zelda, serving Zelda. She had been his friend for so long, it had felt unnatural to hate her, and now he wasn't entirely sure that his 'hatred' had been much more than simple hurt feelings. Now it was so much harder than it should have been to keep himself aloof, to stop this snowballing trust that he longed to return to. And even he couldn't tell whether this was a good thing or a bad one.

"No." There was a pause. "You bear half the Triforce, you say?"

"We'll explain later," Roxas promised.

"Very well. As I said, no. The Triforce does not bring into being a person fit to bear it, no matter whether or not that person had once existed apart. It would have simply chosen a bearer out of those still remaining in Hyrule," Zelda explained. "You came back for a separate reason, the Triforce of Naught merely took advantage of the opportunity."

"What was the reason, then?" Roxas demanded.

"I do not know about your circumstances. They might debunk my theory entirely, but here is what I thought," Zelda took a deep breath. Sheik dragged his mind away from his trust issues to listen intently. Here was the answer they had sought. His trust had nothing to do with a sound theory from the Triforce of Wisdom… right?

"The Sacred Realm is not a place like this Temple or the Castle," Zelda told them. "It exists somewhere outside of both space and time. You cannot find it physically, because it does not exist physically. What makes a Sage a Sage is not only the power over each element, but the ability to move back and forth between the physical and spiritual realms. Link, however, is not a Sage, and does not possess this ability."

"He lost his heart," Roxas realized. "They took his heart into the Sacred Realm and not his body—not you, Sheik!"

"Exactly. But then, after seven years of sleep, he needed to return to the physical realm. It was a simple matter for the Sages. They simply gave him a new body in the same form as his old one." Zelda shrugged in response to Roxas's incredulous look. "Creating a body is not difficult, it is creating a heart that even all the Sages together cannot do. I, however, did not realize what was happening at the time. I simply forced Sheik and Link back together."

"The Law of Conservation of Mass," Roxas worked it out slowly as he said it. "'Matter can neither be created nor destroyed'. It's a saying back where I come from, one of the natural laws. You couldn't destroy Sheik…"

"…But neither could he join with a heart that already possessed a body," Zelda finished. "Yes."

"I get it," Roxas nodded just as slowly as he had spoken. "What you did to Sheik didn't destroy him or integrate him… it just scattered him into the realm of Nothingness. It took seven years for him to reassemble, and when he had, he appeared back on his world just like he'd never left. I _get_ it now."

"Did a similar thing happen to you?" Zelda queried, disregarding the phrase 'his world' for the moment.

"Yeah. My Somebody—that's what we call them, and we're called Nobodies, by the way. My Somebody was housing the heart of a friend of his for safekeeping like Sheik did for you. Except, he still had his heart, too, and didn't know he had hers as well. So when he found out, he used a certain kind of… magic, to unlock his heart and set hers free. Her heart returned to her, but his was lost. That's how I was created," Roxas told the story. "He got his heart back when the girl used another kind of magic… magic no one's been able to do before. It gave him a new body, I see now. And later… later I met him and was sucked in and we became one for a while. But I reappeared, too…"

"Don't look at me," Axel waved his hand as if shooing away a fly when Zelda and Link turned to him. "I'm just your regular, run-of-the-mill, common-or-garden Nobody. My Somebody lost his heart and here I am. No story."

"Very well, then," Zelda suddenly sighed, looking haggard. "Roxas. While Sheik is pardoned because he officially does not exist, you did steal the Royal Archives, and the punishment for that is death. I cannot simply turn the other way, as much as I would like to. I am afraid the least I must do is imprison you for a time…"

"Like hell you're gonna!" Axel growled.

"I didn't want to have to do this," Roxas mumbled. His eyes flicked back and forth, hopelessly. "I _really_ didn't want to have to resort to this…!"

"What?" Axel looked at his partner curiously.

"I claim diplomatic immunity," Roxas said, clearly and distinctly.

"_What_?!" Axel and Sheik both rounded on the short blond disbelievingly and—in Axel's case—amusedly. Link looked stunned and confused, and Zelda, ever the politician, had an expression of polite puzzlement.

"I am afraid I do not understand what you are implying."

"I am implying that I'm one of a… 'ruling council' of our race," Roxas grumbled, looking embarrassed beyond belief. He would have been just fine bluffing his way through this situation had _Axel_ not been right next to him. _Sniggering_.

"Your race?"

"Nobodies, remember? Those without hearts. If you think Link and mine and Axel's Somebodies are the only ones in the histories of the worlds to lose their hearts, you're not as wise as you think," Roxas snorted. "There are hundreds of us, at least. Every single one of us is an accomplished warrior and competent magician. You do not want to start a war with us."

"If it counts for anything at all, Your Highness," Sheik broke in mildly. "I have seen their warriors. I do not advise opposing them." After all, he had complete trust in _Roxas_, at least.

"Yeah, those Dusk things, right?" Link shuddered. "That thing gave me the creeps."

"That was just a grunt," Roxas told him. "Some of them are as tall as this tower we're in now. But that's a grunt, too. The most powerful of Nobodies look like humans, similar to the Somebodies they came from. Yeah, like the three of us. The strongest of the higher Nobodies formed a thing called Organization XIII, because there were thirteen members that controlled all the lesser Nobodies."

"So you are technically a ruler of your race," Zelda cocked her head to the side interestedly. "And you, too," she added to Axel.

"I'm Number VIII," the tattooed man announced proudly. "Currently, that makes me the leader of this 'council', and, consequently, the entirety of the Nobody 'race'."

"Not him?" Link jerked a thumb at Roxas.

"I'm Number XIII," Roxas grumbled. At the Hero's sarcastic look, he flared. "Hey, I'm only two years old, damn it! The numbers are based on order of initiation, anyway, not power!"

"What became of the other eleven members?" the Princess wanted to know.

"Blondie's Somebody and his best friend slaughtered them all," Axel replied cheerfully. "We only escaped the massacre because we betrayed the Organization at the last minute. But since we're all that's left of it, now we're calling the shots. And if you imprison Roxas, I'll declare war and incinerate you right here and now."

"Then it is a shame, but we cannot do anything," Zelda said with a perfectly straight face, though her eyes crinkled at the corners a bit to show that she was inwardly delighted. "I do have one question, however, before the subject is changed… on your loyalties, Sheik. Are you now a part of this Organization, as your clothing implies, or are you still my subject?"

Sheik paused. Even during his lightning-inner-exploration sessions of the last few minutes, he had not thought about that. It was true that if Roxas claimed Nobodies to be a separate race that he wasn't technically Hylian anymore—not that he ever really had been. But who did he follow? Roxas was his friend, and Axel was quickly becoming one… but Link was his Somebody, and all seven plus years of his life had been spent in service to Princess Zelda—his best friend. His best friend who he wasn't entirely sure it was safe to trust anymore, or his mentor in the ways of his race in whom he placed complete trust? How was he to choose?

"I…" he glanced at Roxas, pleadingly. He found no help in the steady blue gaze.

"It's your choice, Sheik. You can't deny what you are, but race has no bearing on nationality or citizenship. I won't decide for you either way," the Keyblader spoke quietly, so that Zelda could not hear him.

"I…" the red-eyed young man swallowed and steeled himself. This was it. His chance to learn to trust again, or his chance to fall back on safety and assurances. "I… am Hylian, my Princess. I always have been."

Roxas was the easy way out. Roxas was the safety net, a friend who wouldn't betray him because of his own trust issues. Zelda had hurt him before… and that was why he chose her. He might regret it later, but that was what life was. A mystery you had to learn as you went. And Sheik had _that_ memorized.

"The coat is for protection, they said so before," Link added. "To keep them from turning into lesser Nobodies when they come in contact with darkness."

"Now that that is settled," Zelda delicately stepped down off the center dais, closer to those she was addressing. "The next order of business is the Mirror Triforce. Roxas, have you agreed to aid us?"

"In a sense," Roxas shifted his weight and met her gaze squarely. "I've agreed to mediate negotiations between you and Ganondorf. That is all."

"Negotiations?" Zelda repeated, surprised. She hadn't expected that.

"Yeah. You can't fight a force equal in power to that of your Triforce if you're one Triforce short," Roxas explained. "Even if Sheik and I also agreed to fight with you, that only puts you at equal power to the Mirror Triforce. You need _more_ power if you're going to fight it."

"Your logic is sound," Zelda digested his argument. "You must realize what you are asking. Ganondorf killed my father right in front of me when I was ten years old. I spent seven years in hiding from him. I was kidnapped and imprisoned by him before Link could defeat him. He has ever been my own personal hated enemy, as well as that of my kingdom."

"Enemies can become allies, if not always friends," Axel broke in unexpectedly. "As a last-minute turncoat hero myself, I would know. Roxas's Somebody even thinks I died for him after he tried to kill me on several occasions."

"I don't think it actually counts unless you're really dead," Roxas pointed out.

"So? When I was faking it, the kid was almost crying. The point is that he absolutely hated me because I kidnapped his girlfriend. But the situation changed, he needed my help, and I gave it—even if it was for a price," Axel argued.

"Price?" Link echoed.

"Yeah, price. Are you deaf?"

"I meant 'what price?'" The Hero of Time ground out in irritation.

"I was going to steal his heart later to free Roxas," Axel admitted.

"That kind of nullifies your whole argument, you know," Roxas rolled his eyes.

"I understand what he is trying to say," Princess Zelda cut off the argument before it could escalate, her eyes smiling again. "I appreciate it. You are correct; situations change. And in this situation, I must set aside my personal grudges and do what is best for my people—what is necessary to rid the world of a scourge that plagues it. That is all-important."

"I'm glad you realize that, because I'm just here to mediate," Roxas informed her. "Nothing more, nothing less."

"We only ask what you are willing to give," Zelda smiled at him with her mouth this time. "Now, to parley with Ganondorf we must enter the Sacred Realm." She paused, eyes widening as she realized something.

"We can't," Axel pointed out, obviously having come to the same conclusion. "We haven't got hearts to go in with, just bodies to leave behind. And if the Hero here goes in, he'll just make another Sheik. We can't go in."

"You must have imprisoned Ganondorf's physical body as well as his spiritual one—that is to say, his body as well as his heart, correct?" Sheik asked desperately.

"Of course. There would be little point in chaining his heart if his body were free to enslave us as before," Zelda looked at her old friend oddly.

"Then we may go to his prison as well, can we not?" he spread his hands as if the answer were obvious. "Simply take us directly there and we will neither sacrifice nor create anything."

"Ganondorf's prison is a dangerous place," Zelda wrapped one arm around herself to grip her other arm's elbow, an unconscious nervous gesture. Her eyes were far away, obviously calculating the risks. "The Sacred Realm reflects the mind of the person viewing it; therefore it appears differently to everybody. We Sages merely cordoned off a section out of which Ganondorf cannot exit. It reflects his mind… dark, evil, tainted. Even with what protection those garments might offer, I would not dare take you there. Especially not you, who are so close to the darkness as it is now. You would succumb in moments."

"But if the place you sectioned off is able to contain his real body as well as his heart, then do to the area around it what you did to it!" Roxas exclaimed. "Just make it so our physical bodies can stand just outside the barrier, and we can talk to him through it."

"…That sounds doable," Link said after a moment. "Why don't you do that, Princess?"

"That's Zelda to you," Zelda corrected him. "And it does indeed sound doable. I shall consult with the other Sages and attempt what you have suggested. I won't be a moment. Wait right here." There was a flash of purple light, and Zelda was gone. Roxas blinked. It looked a bit like Naminé had—and presumably, Roxas himself, though he hadn't seen it—when she had integrated with Kairi.

"I have a question for you," Sheik turned to Link.

"Yeah?"

"How did you find us in the City That Never Was from here?" Sheik wanted to know. "That song you played…"

"The Descant of Desire," Link said. "Tetra taught it to me."

"You know Tetra?" Roxas was taken aback.

"Not really. Nabooru's messenger came and told the Sages what had happened—the meeting was in Zelda's war room instead of the Sacred Realm so that I could be there, too—and Tetra was with her. She said she'd given you a song that helped you away. No one was mad at her or anything. I think Nabooru even told the other Gerudo to get off her back about her veil because of it. That was the meeting where we decided to ask you for help instead of arresting you. Anyway, she taught me the song so I could play it and find you, and it worked like a charm," Link told the tale quickly.

"Why would a song that takes you where you most want to be bring you to us?" Roxas lifted one eyebrow suspiciously. There was a pause during which Link flushed scarlet, stammered a bit, and didn't answer the question.

"Uh-huh. I see. Well, I think Axel and I should go talk over here now, don't you, Axel?" the shortest blond hooked his arm around his partner's and marched the gangly redhead across the tower, leaving Sheik and Link to stand there, beet red and eyeing each other warily.

"So…" Link coughed into his fist, scrambling for a conversation starter. "I guess you're not really a Sheikah, huh?"

"Obviously," Sheik snapped, his voice sharper than he had intended.

"Oh. Well… uh… what's with the cowl, then?" he asked.

"_This_ is with the cowl," Sheik sighed in irritation, reaching up and yanking down the fabric to show his face. Link stared at him for a few long minutes, lost for words.

"…I don't get it," he finally admitted.

"You don't recognize your own face, Hero?" Sheik demanded harshly. He reached up and tore away his turban as well, letting free an unruly mop of bangs that was too short to be braided like the rest of his hair, hanging down in his face like golden tangles of seaweed. "Do you recognize your hair? Well, even if you do not, others do. I could not walk through Hyrule Market without at least ten people wondering when the Hero of Time grew out his hair and got a tan." To Sheik's further annoyance, Link laughed at that.

"You know, I think that's the first time I've ever heard you make a joke," he chuckled.

"Savor it, Hero. It does not happen often," Sheik huffed, folding his arms and starting a little when the movement caused the chains on his coat to clank. He had not yet gotten used to his new clothes.

"I think it looks good on you," Link said quietly, also looking at the coat.

"How narcissistic of you."

"I don't know what _you_ see when you look in a mirror, but apparently you need glasses," Link shot back. "You look absolutely nothing like me except in the face."

"And shoulders. And arms. And chest. And legs. And…"

"Proportionally, maybe, but you're less…" Link groped for a term. "Not less muscular, just that your muscle is leaner than mine. See?" He held out his arm. "Same in every way except muscle mass. And you're a bit thinner, too."

"I do not eat as much as you do."

"That was cold," Link affected hurt. "You're a bit shorter, too…"

"What!" Shiek straightened his back as much as he could. "I am not!"

"You are too," Link grinned. "See? At least an inch."

"An inch counts for nothing," Sheik grumbled. "Roxas is almost a full two feet shorter than Axel, and look at them!" He flung out an accusing finger.

Right at the wrong moment.

Link looked over at the other two and blinked. The redhead was bent over, his face only inches from Roxas's. The Key of Destiny was backed up against a wall, and looked torn between apprehension and outright fury. As they watched, the Flurry of Dancing Flames grinned and leaned in even closer.

Link hurriedly turned back to Sheik. With the cowl gone, it was easy to see that Sheik's cheeks were as red as Link's felt.

"Perhaps that was the wrong example."

"Perhaps," Link said, but there was a note of something else in his voice. Abruptly, he changed the subject. "Are you putting that cowl back on?"

"Yes," Sheik paused in the act of doing just that. "Why?"

"You shouldn't," Link reached over and pulled the cowl out of Sheik's hand. Their fingers brushed, but neither acknowledged it. Since the cowl was attached to the red-eyed youth's tabard, the Hylian couldn't pull it off entirely, but he shoved it down to bunch around the other's neck like a collar. There seemed to be a commotion on Axel and Roxas's side of the tower, but neither Hylian turned to look. They didn't even spare it a thought.

"I must cover my face, or people will ask questions I do not wish to answer," Sheik protested. "It must be difficult for you, of all people, to understand, but there is prejudice in the world. Hardly anyone accepts one when one admits to having no heart."

"Yeah, but…" Link frowned. "What do you mean 'you, of all people'?"

"You are accepted everywhere because you are the Hero of Time. However, had you not been, the Zora would never have let you back into their grotto after you became blood brothers with the Gorons. Likewise, the Gorons would not have made you their blood brother had they known you were engaged to a Zora," Sheik explained.

"I am _not_…!" Link began hotly, blushing again.

"The Gerudo did discriminate against you for being male, to some degree," he continued unheedingly, "but nothing like they would have had you been someone else. The Kokiri might not have accepted you back once they learned you are a Hylian had you not been who you are. Prejudice is everywhere, even for those who are not seen as monsters, even if it does not touch you."

"You aren't a monster," Link denied, but not loudly.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Do you remember the Dodongos? They are a race. They speak, they have their own culture, they even have a rough political hierarchy, even if they are not as sophisticated as Hylians. Yet they are called monsters and driven out wherever they go. The Stals as well," Sheik added as an afterthought, "though in most cases they bring it upon themselves."

"I knew they were _intelligent_," Link mumbled. Now he felt guilty. He had shown the exact kind of prejudice that made Sheik fear for his life if he so much as showed his face in public. It made his blood boil to think that—both of his own actions and of Sheik's fears, however legitimate.

"I was not accusing you, merely stating facts. In any case, the entire point of this debate is that I cannot show my face to anyone except Roxas, Axel, the Princess, and you. And possibly the Sages, depending on how well they take the news."

"Well at least don't cover it up with that cowl," Link conceded. "It doesn't go with the coat and you're not a Sheikah anyway. Here…" He reached over and fiddled with the collar of Sheik's coat. After a few moments, he had rigged it so that the extra fabric from the hood was pulled up securely to Sheik's nose. The rest of the hood was pulled up as well, to hide his hair.

"Perfect," the Hero of Time declared, stepping back to admire his work.

"If you say so, Hero."

"Call me Link," Link commanded sternly.

"The moment you start calling the Princess 'Zelda'," Sheik promised. And smiled.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Why are we going over here again?" Axel questioned, not resisting as his partner tugged him away from the blushing Hylians.

"To give them privacy."

"For what?"

"Have you honestly not noticed?" Roxas rounded on his friend once they were safely on the opposite side of the dais from the subjects of their conversation.

"Um… no. What?" Mint-leaf eyes blinked blankly.

"I guess you wouldn't have. Every time someone mentions the Princess, Sheik gets absolutely crazy, like _seriously_ touchy," Roxas began."

"She tried to kill him," Axel pointed out. "He thought so, anyway. He thought she betrayed him after seven years of friendship."

"You weren't all that broken up when I betrayed you after one year of partnership," Roxas shot back. "And neither do you go stir-crazy when I mention my Somebody, even though he tried to kill you, like, five times."

"What's your point?" Axel's voice was flat now. Roxas, too caught up in what he was saying, didn't even notice.

"My point is that he didn't just hate her for trying to kill him or betraying him," the blond said. "He's _jealous_."

"What?" Now Axel laughed. "Jealous of what?"

"Link," Roxas held his ground in the face of mockery, sure of his reasoning. "He likes Link."

"Likes, like, _likes_?" Axel stopped laughing, and now seemed thoughtful. Roxas didn't know it, but his thoughts were flying back to the night in the penthouse, and a whispered conversation in the dark.

_Do not think you have the corner market on concealed affection._

"Huh. You might be on to something there, shorty," he finally grunted. Then, coming out of his thoughtfulness, "You're really weird, you know that?"

"How does being observant make me weird?" Roxas fumed.

"You notice some things, things that other people wouldn't," Axel stepped closer. Roxas unconsciously backed up a step, feeling his heel bump against the wall. Trapped—and Axel was moving even closer. Axel leaned down, their faces close. Roxas was beginning to feel claustrophobic.

"And yet," breath that smelled of burning, curling mint leaves washed across Roxas's cheeks and lips, "you fail to see what's been right in front of you all this time."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Roxas tried to sound defiant, but it came out as just on the other side of pathetic. For some reason, Axel grinned.

"Want me to make it clearer?"

And he leaned in to close the gap between them.

Axel's lips were hot against his—not warm, but burning hot, like he'd pressed his lips against a plate that had been in the microwave. Not nearly hot enough to blister, but nothing like pleasantly warm.

And yet, he found he liked the heat. It heated his own mouth, and distracted him from what was really going on for a few seconds. In those seconds, he found himself kissing back.

And then, reality hit Roxas over the head like Hayner with a Struggle bat. His eyes—which had been open the last time he'd checked—flew open in panic. He was _kissing_ Axel in a room not a few yards away from Sheik and Link, and the Princess would be back any minute! This could not go on, not matter how nice Axel's mouth felt on his.

He did the only thing he could think of doing.

"ARGH!" Axel fell back, yelling at the top of his lungs. One hand was held to his face while the other flailed about blindly, as if fending off an invisible swarm of bats. "MY EYES! I NEED THOSE, DAMMIT!"

"You brought it on yourself," Roxas's voice again failed him, switching out 'steady and cold' for 'shaky and breathless'. He curled the fingers on his right hand inward. The index and middle ones were slightly wet from when he had stabbed them into Axel's eyes, and he felt a little guilty. What if he'd actually damaged something?

But the guilt was gone moments later when two slivers of mint peeked out of squinting lids to glare accusingly at Roxas. He had to be fine if he was pouting like that.

"You were kissing back," the redhead rebutted, and Roxas could find no suitable reply.

He settled for, "You're delusional," and turned, meaning to make his way back towards Sheik and Link and safety from this sudden madness.

"Maybe I am," Axel caught Roxas's arm as he went past, "but don't even try to tell me you didn't like it."

"Wasn't the eye-poking thing answer enough for you?"

"You'll see," was all Axel said. He said it with such confidence and authority that Roxas suddenly felt confused and ruffled—even more so than he had felt before, that is. What exactly was it he was supposed to 'see'? If the kiss had been any indication… Roxas didn't even want to go there.

"You'll see," Axel repeated with an enigmatic smile, releasing Roxas. The Key of Destiny didn't even bother with a witty retort this time, and what could he have said in the face of such unflinching confidence anyway? He hurried away to where Sheik and Link were talking quietly, forcing himself to notice that Sheik's cowl had been replaced by the collar of his coat and his turban by the hood instead of the way Axel's measured footsteps followed him, and the way he knew his cheeks were flaming.

And he was licking his lips because they were dry, not because they tasted like burnt mint.

Really.


	11. 10: All's Well That Ends

**Kitty: So… Next chapter brings in Sora and Riku. (…And Kairi, of course.) Recently I've been majorly inspired for this fic, and I've almost finished writing it entirely. ^^ (Twenty chapters so far and still counting…)**

**Axel: Not much to say about this one… Except that YearOfTheKitty does not own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda. **

**Kitty: Enjoy.**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter X**

**All's Well That Ends**

"_Sneak negotiations!"_

—_Caboose, 'Red vs. Blue'_

It didn't take long for Princess Zelda to return to where they waited in the Temple. She appeared in the same violet flash she had left in, leaving Roxas to wonder if there had been a flash of colored light when he had reappeared in Hyrule Field. He guessed he would never know, since the only one who had been there to witness it had been Sheik, who at the time had had a few other things to think about. He wondered what color the light had been when he had integrated with the Hero of Light…

"The Sages have agreed to your suggestion," Zelda announced. "They also send their greetings to our two newest rulers," she added with a sardonic look at Axel and Roxas.

"Of course they do," Axel sniffed, sticking his nose up and looking as haughty as he was able. "After all, they wouldn't want to start a war with us, would they?"

"Cut it out," Roxas muttered, elbowing him in the ribs. The redhead jerked away, dropping the act and ruefully rubbing his side. Roxas purposefully kept his eyes on Zelda, so as to avoid the look he could _feel_ drilling into his temple.

"How soon can they bring us to the Sacred Realm?" Link wanted to know, all business.

"As a matter of fact, they are ready now. The other Sages shall perform a rite that will take us to the edge of Ganondorf's prison, where we may speak with him. They will not be able to hold it for very long, not even if I were to help them, and even less since I cannot, so the negotiations must be completed with all haste. Link," Zelda paused for breath after this rapid recital of instructions, looking as grave as Roxas had ever seen her, "…I think it best for you to take the Master Sword."

"You think he'll try to break free?" Link asked, not surprised. He'd expected something like this.

"Yes."

"This Master Sword…" Roxas tapped his lip thoughtfully. "What's its deal again?"

"It is the Blade of Evil's Bane," Sheik reminded him. "It can only be wielded by one with a pure heart, and it destroys all others. In our kingdom's history, I believe that Link is the only person to ever be able to pull it from its stone."

"Shouldn't that make him king?" Roxas smirked.

"What?"

"It's a fairy tale from where I come from," the blond started up the few steps towards the center dais, inspecting the sword. "It was something about a sword stuck in a stone that only the true king could pull out, and some weedy kid got it and everyone else had to make him king even though he was useless."

"…I like to think of myself as useful and not all that weedy," Link offered, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows.

"I didn't mean you," Roxas waved a hand absently, still studying the sword. "Let me see…" Before anyone could stop him—only Zelda was close enough to, anyway—he stretched out one hand and grasped the handle.

There was an explosion of blue lightning, a tremendous sizzling noise, and a cry from Roxas as he was violently thrown backwards, off the pedestal. The blond thumped down hard, cracking the back of his head against the marble flooring and skidding a few feet before coming to a halt.

"Roxas!" Sheik and Axel were on either side of him instantly, helping him sit up.

"I'm okay," he shook his head, a bit dazed. "Man, that thing packs a punch, though. I won't be trying that again."

"Let me see your hand," Axel didn't wait for a response, but yanked the named appendage towards him anyway. Roxas winced, and the fingers on his wrist gentled a bit. The fingerless glove had been scorched away, so that just a few threads were left holding the scrap of cloth on the back. His palm was an angry red color, clear fluid beginning to ooze from it. Roxas tried to flex his fingers and had to shut his eyes for a moment as his vision swam.

_Okay, not doing that again, either._

"Curaga," Axel murmured. Cool green flowed over his injured skin as the magic knit it back together. It felt refreshing, cold, and sharp—exactly the way Roxas imagined the color of Axel's eyes to feel if colors had textures. Not, of course, that he was thinking about such things.

"There. Be a little more careful next time, would you?" Axel released his hand and offered a smirk. "Of course, we all already knew you weren't exactly pure as the driven snow anyway, so it's not like this comes as a shock."

"I bet if you touched it, your entire arm would be burned off," Roxas shot back.

"Hypothetically, or should we start talking numbers?" Axel returned, smirk widening.

"Come on, people!" Link's raised voice echoed through the Temple a thousand times over. _People, eople, ple, le, le…!_ "We've got to get to the Sacred Realm to negotiate with Ganondorf, remember?" _Member, member, ber, ber, er…?_

"Yeah, we're coming," Roxas seized Axel's shoulder and used it to haul himself to his feet. The redhead let him do it, rising once the shorter Nobody was upright again. Sheik stood fluidly, striding ahead of the other two back towards the dais. Roxas hurried to catch up, leaving Axel to bring up the rear sedately.

"Everyone, grab onto my arm or sleeve," Zelda commanded. Roxas reached out and bunched up a fistful of lilac cotton, seeing Axel do the same beside him, his long, thin arm easily snaking over Roxas's shoulder. Sheik took hold of her other sleeve, while Link grabbed the Princess's hand in his own.

"Prepare yourselves," the girl's voice was steady as always, holding none of the nervousness she had been showing before. Then again, she was a politician born and bred…

Roxas's thoughts were put on temporary hold as his vision was blotted out by a spreading stain of purple light, like the petals of violets unfurling in front of him. The petals folded around them for a brief moment before withering away, clearing the boy's vision once more, albeit dancing with orange and yellow afterimages.

He would have gladly swapped the sight that met his eyes then for a thousand more bright lights.

Their group stood on what appeared to be a small, ragged chunk of rock. Around the perimeter of this tiny island stood five figures, who Roxas assumed to be the Sages. Each one was obviously concentrating deeply. A thin, almost invisible film, like that of a soap bubble, rose in a dome over the island, protecting it from what was outside.

Outside was a howling maelstrom of darkness. Roxas took an involuntary step back, remembrance flashing across his mind.

_A chunk of island, floating on its own… (Hands gripping sharp, splintered edges. Don't slip, don't slip, don't slip.) Debris whipping around and around, caught in the winds that shrieked and moaned like hungry banshees… (Wind tearing, grasping, pulling. Splinters tearing, fingers slipping. Don't slip…) Purple and black streaks all around, obscuring what had once been crystal-blue skies… (Shouting, crying, the edge too far now. Can't grab it, can't grab it!) And, looming above it all, silhouetted against the pit of absolute darkness that was sucking everything in, a tall, dark figure that seemed to be malicious intent incarnate… (Falling, falling down but down is up and oh God, oh God it's looking at me…!)_

Everything was just the same here, he saw, except for the lack of flying debris. Behind them, he could see a some kind of barrier holding the darkness in, fire sheeting down like rain on a windowpane only to trickle back up at the corners and sheet back down again.

_Ganondorf's prison walls…_ he thought, azure eyes widening significantly. _We're inside them…_

"**What's this**?" a voice as thick and rich as the velvety blackness around them slithered into Roxas's ears, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. "**The Sages come to visit**? **I'm almost touched**…"

"Ganondorf!" Zelda's voice was as weak and non-threatening as a day-old kitten's mewling when set against the hurricane of malignance around her. The wind whipped her dress and hair into a frenzied dance, the poor, tortured materials streaming sideways as if to escape. "We have come to parley with you!"

"**Parley**?" Ganondorf's voice repeated. Two eyes opened in the distance, yellow pinpoints that put Roxas in mind of a Heartless. "**What gives you the idea I am willing to do anything besides swat you like the impertinent flies you are for daring to come here and mock me?**"

"If you do, you'll just be dead within the month anyway," Roxas stepped up beside Zelda, staring unflinchingly into the maelstrom. It was time he started mediating. "I am Roxas, representative of the Nobodies, and here to mediate. The Princess asks only that you hear her out for now. Face it, you haven't got anything better to do cooped up in here, so what've you got to lose?"

"**You are an amusing one**," the yellow eyes blinked slowly, curving with laughter. "**Very well. I will listen to the Princess' proposal**."

"Thank you," Zelda nodded shortly. "The Kingdom of Hyrule is in dire peril at the moment. It stands on the brink of annihilation at the hands of those who wield the Mirror Triforce."

"**I have heard the legend of the Mirror Triforce**," Ganondorf admitted. "**But it is an old wives' tale, meant to scare children and nothing more. There is no danger in stories**."

"That's where you're wrong," Roxas shouted. He lifted his right hand, the center triangle glowing brightly, cutting through the blackness like a hot knife through butter. The light illuminated the owner of the eyes, who, Roxas could now see, was not as distant as he had thought. The blond teen had envisioned a terrible monster on the scale of Twilight Thorn or at least Dark Side, and had therefore mentally placed Ganondorf farther out due to the small size of his eyes. He had been wrong on both counts.

Ganondorf was a man. He dressed in blue, brown, and white armor, and stood well over eight feet tall. His shoulders and arms were massive and muscled, and his neck was as thick as a bull's. His long-nosed, aristocratic face was topped by a yellow jewel on his forehead. His flaming red hair was short, and only served to reinforce the resemblance Roxas saw between the King of Evil and the Gerudo. Ganondorf's feet rested on nothing, yet he stood only just off the edge of the Sages' island-bubble, his eyes gleaming like a cat's.

"I am the bearer of the Triforce of Naught," Roxas told the man. "That means that the Mirror Triforce is out there somewhere."

"**Interesting**…" Gannondorf leaned forward, eyes narrowing. He certainly looked interested. "**So the Mirror Triforce is indeed at large once more. What of it? It is no concern of mine if your puny kingdom falls**."

"We require the power of your Triforce if we are to defeat this menace," Zelda said to him. "But we do not ask for favors—we are willing to give you something in return for your aid."

"**Freedom**," was Ganondorf's instant request. "**I will not help you if you offer less than my freedom, both from this prison and any other**."

"That we cannot allow," the Princess's face set. "It would be madness to eliminate one threat merely to trade it for another."

"**Then we have no deal and your kingdom shall fall**," Ganondorf returned flatly, crossing his arms and smirking. He knew he held all the cards in this bargaining session.

"What," Roxas cut in, "if the Sages let you go free _but_," he emphasized, throwing a pointed look at Zelda, who had begun to protest, "banish you from Hyrule?"

"…**It is tempting…**" Ganondorf mused it over, lowering his chin and shutting his eyes in thought. He seemed to take quite a while to decide, but really it was only a few seconds. The time was made longer by Roxas's anticipation that any moment one of the Sages would cry out 'We can't hold it any longer' and the barriers would fall, leaving nothing between him and the darkness around him.

"**It is a good offer**," Ganondorf finally said, looking up and uncrossing his arms. Roxas's dread lifted. He was going to accept! That hadn't been hard at all…

"…**but, frankly, I would rather kill you all right here**," he finished with a shark's grin. "**Starting with this one**!" Suddenly, unexpectedly, Ganondorf lunged forward. His arm passed through the barrier as if it were a soap bubble in truth, though anything beyond his shoulder impacted against it as if it had hit a brick wall. The hand lashed out quicker than thought, catching them all by surprise as it latched on to the closest person to the edge—the only one in reach.

"_ROXAS_!" Sheik cried out, making as if to leap forward. He was held back by the Princess, who clutched his shoulder, her eyes wide and breath fast, panicked by her own helplessness. None of them could leave the bubble, or they would be consumed by the hurricane beyond.

"_Give him back_!" Axel snarled, a world of fury in his voice, his eyes snapping with emerald flames just like the curls of fire that began to lick around his hands and the ends of his robes and hair.

"**I don't think I will**," Ganondorf replied easily. He was floating several yards away, dangling Roxas out by one thick arm, his big hand gripping the back of the collar of Roxas's coat. The blond didn't dare struggle lest the fabric tear and send him plunging down into the abyss.

"**I think**," the King of Evil continued, "**that you will agree to not only set me free without banishment, but allow me to resume my former post as King of the Gerudo, or else I will release the boy… so that he falls into the pit below, where the flesh will slowly be stripped from his bones**."

"Princess!" one of the Sages, an old man with a large, white mustache and orange robes called out urgently. "Ganondorf's disruption has weakened the barrier! We cannot hold it for much longer!"

At the same time, Roxas shouted out in pain. Purplish-black tentacles snaked out of the storm like children's hands reaching for him, caressing his skin and wrapping around him like two-dimensional arms embracing him lovingly. Each touch burned like acid, so cold it was hot. More and more of these snakes were pulling away to slither around him, turning his normally pale white skin black as pitch.

"**You had better decide quickly**," the red-haired man advised. "**Agree to my terms now and both the boy and all of you shall live. He does bear the Triforce of Naught, does he not? I wonder how well your kingdom shall fare without anything to balance it against itself…**"

"Argh!" Roxas had forgotten his fear of ripping fabric and was now writhing in the man's grasp, desperate to escape the burning-cold darkness corroding every inch of exposed skin and slowly creeping towards his face…

"Agree!" Axel rounded on Zelda, his eyes wild with rage. "Do it now!"

"But Hyrule…!"

"I don't give a damn about Hyrule! _Save my partner_!" the redhead roared.

"No!" Roxas's holler tore through the argument. A pulse of power rocked through Sheik's body, rippling like shockwaves through water. The Sages all buckled as it swept through them, continuing onwards into the darkness. Axel whipped around to see Roxas hanging still once more, the blackness at his jawbone now and still crawling upwards, spreading like spilled paint. His blue eyes, though hazy with pain, were clear and steady as they met his.

"There's no point," he continued more quietly. "This man… speaks nonsense… Don't let him… deceive… you…"

"What?" Sheik went absolutely still, his eyes wide with confusion and fear. Was Roxas truly insulting the one who literally held his life in his hand? Beside him, Axel straightened up from his battle posture, chakrams falling to his side. His eyes never left Roxas's.

"Princess, the barrier is breaking!" a small girl in green, one of the Sages, cried.

"**Time is running out…** **You—**"

The rest of Ganondorf's sentence was suddenly cut off as twin flashes of light appeared in Roxas's hands, the boy twisting around in the man's grip to slash at his captor's ribs with two glowing swords. At the same time, Axel's hands whipped up too fast for Sheik's eyes to follow the movement, two flaming chakrams blasting through the barrier and slamming directly into Ganondorf's chest. The Gerudo lost his grip on Roxas, who plummeted down, almost instantly lost in the swirling purple-black wind.

"…**Ehehehe…**" Ganondorf's laughter grew into full-throated bellows of hearty amusement. "**Ahahahaha! See now what your hesitation has cost**!"

"Roxas…" Sheik whispered.

"No, Ganondorf," Zelda stepped forward, her back as stiff as her voice, "See what _your_ hesitation has cost. Your bargaining chip is gone. Accept our terms or rot here for eternity."

"**Wha…**?" Ganondorf's laughter was cut off as if with a knife, surprised. Slowly, fury dawned on his face as he realized what had happened. "**You tricked me, you impudent flies**!"

"Do you accept our terms?" Zelda demanded.

"**Yes, damn it! I accept your terms!**" the Gerudo raged. "**Do not think this is the last of it, Princess! One day your kingdom shall pay for all it has done to me**!"

"The barrier is fading fast!" the green-garbed girl gasped, swaying on her feet. The other Sages were similarly exhausted. "Princess, we must leave…"

"Take us back," she commanded, turning sharply away from Ganondorf, as if the sight of him pained her. "And him, too."

_This is wrong…_ Sheik thought despairingly. He was supposed to return with a grinning Roxas at his side—his friend, his mentor, the other half of his power. He was supposed to be preparing arguments in his head to convince the Key of Destiny to fight on their side against the Mirror Triforce. Roxas was not supposed to die, and certainly not that way. The coat was supposed to have protected him from consumption by darkness. And what had he and Axel thought to accomplish by attacking aside from loosening Ganondorf's grip and making him fall…?

There was a flash of rainbow light, but the colors made Sheik sick. The way they spilled across his vision was far too much like the blackness creeping along Roxas's skin, spreading like a supernaturally fast fungus. Turning his friend into a simple silhouette, indistinguishable from his surroundings. Consuming him.

Even the white marble of the Temple of Time seemed far too cheerful for the Hero of Time's Nobody. Its solemn reverence did nothing to soothe him. He turned to glare bloody daggers of hatred at Ganondorf, discovering within himself a well of malice as yet untapped, a whole new level of hatred for the red-haired man who had both indirectly caused and ruined Sheik's life. He stood in the Temple, looking exceptionally like a bullish, ugly demon smirking evilly, clothed in darkness as if he were a piece of the maelstrom tragedy come to haunt them. The Sages stood each on their respective symbols around the edge of the outer dais.

"Now, officially," Zelda began, taking a deep breath and straightening. "I, Zelda, ruling Princess of the Kingdom of Hyrule, hereby offer you, Ganondorf, former King of the Gerudo, these terms: In return for your aid in combating the Mirror Triforce and all those allied with it—including locating the aforesaid—I shall grant you pardon from your previous life sentence. Instead, you shall be banished from the Kingdom of Hyrule and all kingdoms, provinces, and other areas allied with it until the day you die. For the duration of this agreement, you are granted the rights and status of a political prisoner, and as such shall not be harmed in any way. In return, you shall agree to not work against the Kingdom of Hyrule, all kingdoms, provinces, and other areas allied with it, or any inhabitants thereof by word, deed, or thought. Do you accept these terms?"

"I do," Ganondorf practically snarled the words. His expression so resembled that of an enraged dragon that smoke trickling from his nostrils would not have seemed out of place. His short, bristling red hair did nothing to deter from this image, and his long nose only furthered it.

"Then it is sealed. Any violations of these set terms on the part of either party will be seen as an act of highest blasphemy against the Goddesses and treated as such," Zelda finished. "…So, you are now our ally."

"I live to serve, Princess," Ganondorf swept a mocking bow, his face still contorted in fury.

"Axel," the Princess turned to the tall redhead, sorrow in every line of her face. "I am sorry for what has happened. I understand what it feels like… but please remember that harming Ganondorf in any way will violate the terms I have just set, and destroy all that Roxas worked for. You must understand this."

"I get it," Axel said slowly. His head tipped to the side. "…Why are you telling me this?"

"You…" Zelda blinked, too startled to continue.

"You don't want to avenge Roxas?" Link broke in, sounding angry. "Are you made of stone or something? I guess you have no heart after all. What was that I saw before we left, some kind of _prank_…?!"

"Yeah, Axel, what _was_ that about, anyway?"

Sheik froze where he stood. This time, the shock that ran through him came from nowhere but himself. For the second time in not ten minutes, the red-eyed youth found himself unable to believe what his senses were telling him. That wickedly sharp voice; those ringing footsteps, louder due to the size of the sneakers causing them; that short, pale figure that emerged from around the Sage of Light, blue eyes crinkled in a smile that lifted his round cheeks and wrinkled his snub, freckled nose beneath a riot of windswept blond spikes.

Roxas.

"When'd you get those bruises, partner?" Axel asked, utterly blasé. Now that Sheik looked, he saw that Roxas did indeed have several new bruises, one in particular that spread across his left cheek rather spectacularly. The skin on his neck and arms—or what little could be seen of them, anyway—was red and burned-looking from where the darkness had corroded him.

"I was stuck to the bottom of the rock, _partner_," Roxas glared back. "I was kind of pressed against it. Hard."

"_Roxas_…!" Sheik's voice was high and strangled. He threw himself forward, off the inner dais, shoving his face into Roxas's. Now it was his turn to be furious.

"What were you _thinking_, attacking him like that?! You should be a wisp of black vapor by now! Do you have any _idea_ what I was thinking?! I thought you'd _committed SUICIDE_…!" he shouted at record volume. Roxas blinked, momentarily taken aback by the torrent of anger and the fact that _Sheik_ was _yelling_. He hadn't expected anyone to not realize he'd survived, but, of course, to them it would look as if he hadn't…

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "There wasn't time to tell you the plan."

"And what, pray tell, was 'the plan'?"

"To make him drop me," Roxas shrugged. "After I fell, I cast Graviga and stuck to the bottom of the rock you guys were on. Remind me to never, _ever_ do that again, by the way. It freaking _hurts_. Anyway, then we all disappeared, and nobody noticed me over here."

"How did you know what he was planning?" Zelda asked Axel.

"He said 'this man speaks nonsense. Don't let him deceive you'," Axel replied. "Roxas would _never_ say something like that. It was what DiZ and I said to _him_ back in Twilight Town, just after I'd thrown my chakrams at him and they'd bounced right off. I figured it meant Roxas wanted me to throw them and he had a plan so they wouldn't hurt him. I didn't know he planned to _fall_, but I trusted him not to have just kicked it like that."

"Thanks for the faith."

"Anytime."

"So… now what?" Roxas looked around himself, at a loss.

"I cannot see why any Triforce would have chosen such a stupid bearer," Ganondorf broke in with a sneer. "It is quite obvious. We now eliminate the Mirror Triforce."

"First, though, we must track down its bearers," Zelda put in, choosing to ignore the slight to Roxas, though the blond himself was seething with rage.

"We'll take care of it," Axel assured her. "Like I always say, if there's one thing Dusks are good for, it's finding things—got it memorized?"

"Come on, Sheik," Roxas spun on his heel, still fuming. "It's high time someone taught you how to use magic and summon lesser Nobodies."

"Yes," Sheik nodded and, after bowing to Princess Zelda and the Sages, followed the Key of Destiny out of the Temple. He still hadn't quite forgiven him for the scare he'd had—but there was no doubt that by tomorrow all would be forgotten. And he really was eager to try his hand at the spells he'd seen Roxas using…

"Axel," Zelda turned to the redhead once they had left.

"Yeah?"

"I know I have no right to ask this of you—but could you keep an eye on them? The fate of my kingdom is resting on both of their shoulders, and if anything should happen, I would never forgive them. Or myself, for that matter," she requested, hands folded in front of her.

"If ever there was something you _didn't_ need to ask me…" Axel laughed slightly, winking. "Your wish is my command, Your Highness."

"I'll watch out for them, too," Link declared.

"Thank you. Both of you," Zelda smiled a small but heartfelt smile.

"Now let's get going, before we lose them altogether!" Axel set off after his partner, pausing as he brushed past Ganondorf. "Oh, and by the way…" he turned to the Gerudo, eyes hard as chips of malachite. "You so much as look at Roxas again and you'll quickly find yourself a head shorter, got it memorized?" Ganondorf made no move to reply, but Axel didn't wait in any case, sweeping out the door as if nothing had happened. Link trotted after him, shooting a glare at the red-haired man as he passed. Ganondorf himself smirked at Zelda before striding out the door himself. The Sages watched him leave silently.

"Your Highness," the small green-haired girl piped up when he had gone, "can we really trust him?"

"Of course not, Saria," the Princess sighed. "But as much as I hate it, Ganondorf must be our ally in order for Hyrule to survive."

"I know that… I meant the other one, Axel," Saria clarified, putting her hands on her hips. "Can we trust _him_?"

"I don't know. But I trust the Hero of Time," Zelda smiled a little. "He and Sheik are some of the only people I can trust absolutely, and Sheik is good friends with Roxas, who, in turn, is good friends with Axel. We should have no problems with him. But something has been bothering me… How did Ganondorf bypass your protective wall?"

"It must have been the Triforce," the orange-clothed man surmised. "Even the power of the Sages cannot contain the power of the Goddesses—not with one of our number missing, and not in his own domain."

"What _I_ want to know is how we're going to combat these bearers," a tall, blue-skinned fish-girl spoke up. The large fins on her arms twitched as she spoke, and her long earrings jangled when her oblong head tipped to the side.

"That would depend on who they are," the old man replied. "If, for instance, they are in a position of power with armies at their disposal…"

"We must assess our enemies before a plan of action is made," a tall, stern woman with short gray hair added. "Otherwise we are simply running in blindly."

"For now, all we can do is wait until Roxas and Sheik locate them," Nabooru finished, her tone indicating every confidence in the two Nobodies.

"We can help them locate the bearers as well," Zelda disagreed. "I will organize a contingent of soldiers to play Tetra's song, the Descant of Desire, which should take them to the Mirror Triforce bearers."

"Why would it?" the fish-girl wanted to know.

"I will, of course, be offering a very substantial reward if they succeed in finding them," Zelda smiled thinly. "There is no greater motivator among soldiers, I should think, if their greatest desire isn't already to do as I tell them. Now, I think it best if we each go back to our own people to prepare them for what may well be a war. I will contact you if our efforts bear fruit and the bearers are located. The Goddesses be with you all."

"And with you," all six Sages chorused back. One by one, with multicolored flashes of light, they disappeared, until only Zelda was left. She, too, exited, though by means of the door rather than teleportation. The Temple was silent once more, awaiting the next meeting of the Sages.

It wouldn't be waiting for long.


	12. 11: Heart's Resolve

**Kitty: You know, I've always wondered how I would react to my first flame. Would it hurt my feelings? Would I get mad? Well, now I know… XD I literally laughed out loud. I'm so freakin happy! No, seriously, check this thing out! It talks about yaoi turning the soul into a corrupted husk, a mythical 'straightness gene' that everyone is born with, and ends with telling me that yuri is okay because all girls are bi anyway. XD Listen up, 'the man of justice and truth': I'm a girl. So by your own rules, it's okay for me to like gay stuff. XD And my soul was lost long before I got into yaoi… (atheist, incoming!) Good luck trying to reform the entirety of the Akuroku fandom. I think they number somewhere in the hundreds, if not thousands… .**

**Axel: …You want I should kill him?**

**Kitty: Easy, there. I'm not going to disable anonymous reviews because most people reading this story seem to review anonymously, but I might have to if 'the man of justice and truth' persists. On that note, I'm disappointed that the only review I got last chapter was a flame, but it was such an awesome flame that I'm not even depressed about it. **

**Axel: YearOfTheKitty does not own Kingdom Hearts or Legend of Zelda.**

**Kitty: Thank you. Also, this is where Sora and Riku come in. Check out the quote. I love that thing to death because it describes the Keyblade, like, perfectly. XD Enjoy!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XI**

**Heart's Resolve**

"_So it's a sword that, under certain special circumstances, can act as a key?"_

"_Or maybe, it's a key all the time, and when you stick it in people… it unlocks their death."_

—_Tucker and Caboose, 'Red vs. Blue'_

It happened while Sora was in the library. For once, he was with Tidus and Wakka instead of Riku and Kairi. The orange-haired blitzballer had appointed himself unofficial taskmaster in charge of Sora and Tidus's grades—which were currently rather beyond hope. He had managed to 'persuade'— and Sora doubted the bruises would ever fade—the two of them to come to the library that Saturday for an emergency study-session.

Which was how the Hero of Light, Savior of the Multiverse, Destroyer of Heartless, and personal confidant of King Mickey himself, found himself being beaten over the head by a calculus textbook held by an angry blond blitzballer.

"You idiot!" Tidus raged. "You told me the wrong way to do it! Now we have to do the whole thing over again!"

"Ow! Hey! We wouldn't have to if Wakka would just get off our cases," Sora protested, shooting a sulky glance at the aforementioned boy. Wakka was balancing his chair on the back two legs, one hand holding open a book and the other absently twirling a blitzball.

"If you two would just do the work in school, I wouldn't make you do this, ya?" he replied without taking his eyes off what he was reading. "It's your own fault."

"What about the others? Riku, Kairi, and Selph?" Tidus demanded. "Don't _they_ have work to do? Torture _them_!"

"No, _they_ do it on their own," Wakka denied. "It's the two of _you_ who don't do it."

"Great. Now you made me lose the page, too, Sora…" Tidus grumbled, flipping through the book rapidly. Sora watched him do it with something approaching nostalgia. He hadn't seen his friends for several years now, and every now and then he found himself surprised by how much older they were now. Tidus, in particular, had hit his growth spurt and was now nearly as tall as Sora was—and quite a bit more buff, due to near-constant blitzball practice. Some things about the boy, though, never changed—such as his ambition in taking an advanced class, and the sheer magnitude of his failure in it. Such was a talent only Tidus possessed, when off the blitzball court, that is.

"Hey! If I can't space out, neither can you!" the loud voice was accompanied by a resounding clunk as Tidus's foot impacted Sora's shin. The brunet doubled over, clutching his, his cheeks puffing out as he forced down his instinctive shout of pain. If they got thrown out of the library for being loud, Wakka would positively murder him… and while Sora could easily face down a thousand ravening Heartless, his boundless courage did not extend to the realm of high school or social interactions therein.

"Sorry," he finally grunted, looking up. "I was just thinking about something…"

"Yeah, I know you were. Now, help me do this the _right_ way this time, okay?" Tidus shoved the textbook at him. "I don't get it."

"Okay, I think what we've gotta do first is…" Sora's weary sentence was cut off in a sharp inhalation. A thrill of power raced through his body, as if he were a tuning fork somebody had just flicked. Deep within himself, far away, he caught an echo of someone else's fear and pain… pain like the time he'd become a Heartless…

_Roxas_, the thought came to him with perfect clarity. He had no idea what was going on, but he was absolutely certain it had something to do with Roxas. This feeling he was getting, it was just like the sorrow he'd felt in Twilight Town saying goodbye to Hayner, Pence, and Olette, or the gut-wrenching grief he'd felt watching Axel fade Betwixt and Between. A feeling from the other side of his heart.

_Roxas was in trouble._

"What? What's wrong?" Tidus sounded panicked, yanking the textbook back. "Are we doing it wrong again?"

"No," Sora stood abruptly. "I just remembered something. I've got to go!"

"Not till you're done with your work," Wakka looked up, his expression stern. "You gotta pass to get into college, ya?"

"Trust me," Sora was already leaving, fighting the urge to break into a run as he called over his shoulder, "this is more important!"

And then he was gone, through the library doors, running through the streets, headed for Riku's house. People looked at him as he passed, but not with surprise or alarm. Sora and his friends routinely charged through the Islands' streets as if chased by the demons of Hell itself—though, admittedly, few to none of them had ever seen goofy, light-hearted Sora look so serious.

The brunet himself ran with such single-minded purpose that he hadn't thought of the possibility that Riku wasn't home at this time of day until he was already on the sidewalk in front of his house. Shrugging and figuring it did no harm to be sure, the Hero of Light flung himself up the front walk and practically collapsed on the doorbell, chest heaving. After pressing down for five consecutive seconds, the boy rolled to the side so that he was leaning against the door, thinking to catch his breath and make a list of places his friend could be before setting off again.

Unexpectedly, the surface he was leaning against disappeared from beneath him. Sora fell back with a yelp, his cry mingling with Riku's as he fell right on top of the taller boy. Both young men went down in a heap.

"Sora, you idiot! What were you doing leaning against my door?" Riku demanded, disentangling himself with some difficulty.

"I thought you weren't home," Sora panted, also pulling away.

"Only you expect people to reach the door in five seconds or less," turquoise eyes rolled. "What's up with you, anyway? You're all out of breath. Did you run all the way from the library?"

"Yeah," Sora nodded and leaped to his feet, remembering the urgency of his mission. "Riku, there's trouble! I think Roxas is back."

"Roxas?" Riku climbed more slowly to his feet, closing the door even more slowly. "That's not possible. He's part of you until you lose your heart again." One of the silver-haired boy's fists rapped its knuckles against the wood door as he spoke.

"I don't know," Sora folded his arms. "It's just this feeling I got… It's hard to explain to someone who's never had a Nobody. When there's something he feels really strongly, I feel it, too. Just now, I felt that he was in trouble, that he was scared and in pain. And that he was somewhere far away…"

"Sora, be reasonable," Riku shook his head slowly, his cascade of shining hair rippling like liquid platinum. "Unless 'far away' means 'on Destiny Islands' we can't help him. The paths between worlds are shut, remember?"

"Not all of them," Sora stuck out his lip stubbornly. "The Keyblade opens paths to places I need to go. I'm sure it will open a path for me to find Roxas."

"And if it doesn't?" Sora had no answer to that. "Look, Sora, I know he's part of you, but you never really met him. He's absolutely immersed in darkness. He's _evil_. He's so strong that the only way I could beat him was to… well, you saw it. And he doesn't care about you. What will you do if you rush in only to find it was all a trap? You'll die, that's what."

"Roxas wouldn't!" Sora denied. While he himself had had minimal contact with the blond Nobody, he had managed to pry every scrap of information about him out of Riku. What he had heard was biased and fragmented, but the mental picture Sora had built up of his Nobody was nothing like what Riku had described to him. "He betrayed the Organization, Riku. And he was friends with Hayner and the rest."

"He was friends with artificial copies of them specifically created to be friends with him," Riku corrected dryly.

"You met him when his memories were gone!" Sora reminded him. "He was a good guy then."

"Yeah, because his memories were gone," Riku argued. "They might be back now. You can say whatever you want, Sora. I won't let you fall right into his trap."

"You don't know it is a trap," Sora contradicted. "That's why I came here, anyway; because I knew you wouldn't let me go alone."

"If he's hurt and afraid, then by the time we find out where he is and how to get there he'll probably already be dead," the tall youth tried one last time to change his friend's mind.

"All the more reason to go ASAP," was the firm reply. Riku took a deep breath, shutting his eyes as he blew it out in a tremendous sigh. All the tension seemed to bleed out of him along with the oxygen.

"Fine. Let's go find Kairi."

"H-huh?" Sora was surprised. "Why?"

"She's coming, too," Riku replied as if it was obvious. "Do you really think she'll let us go by ourselves? And if we try leaving without her, she'll just get mad _and_ come with us anyway. Besides, I want her there if you turn into a Heartless again."

"You worry too much," Sora rolled his eyes. "But you make a good point. Do you know where she is?"

"Home or with Selphie."

"That narrows it down. Come on, let's try her house first, then Selphie's," the lanky brunet was already leaving as he said it, calling the words over his shoulder. Riku heaved one last sigh before following his friend out the door, jogging to keep up. This was a mistake. He _knew_ leaving the Islands was a mistake. Everything that had gone wrong in their lives was a result of their desire to leave in the first place.

As it turned out, they did not get as far as either girl's house. The two young men were all but flying down the sidewalk—Sora having unconsciously picked up the pace as he went on and Riku attempting to keep him in sight—when they passed a small park. It wasn't much of a park, just a rectangular field of grass with a sand pit at one end containing a rusted, disused swing set. It was a popular spot for people to walk their dogs or for teenagers to practice sports, but was otherwise abandoned. Weeds ran rampant across it, and the shaggy green expanse was dotted with yellow dandelions.

But none of this was what caught Riku's attention.

"Sora!" he shouted, digging in his heels and skidding to a stop. Ahead, the shorter boy halted as well, spinning around and sprinting to his friend's side.

"What is it, Riku?" he panted.

"There," Riku stepped into the field, raising his hand to point. There was nothing there.

"I don't see anything," the Hero of Light admitted.

"No. But I smell something…" the silver-haired boy's hand whipped up to shoulder height, his Keyblade appearing in a flash. Sora took the cue and dropped into his own fighting stance, the Kingdom Key taking form in his hands.

"More Heartless?" Even as he said it, he doubted it. For some reason, the Heartless had been ominously quiet for the last two days. He supposed they could have been gathering strength for one huge assault, but that didn't seem like them at all.

"I don't think so… It doesn't smell dark, just…" Riku shook his head. "I've never smelled anything like it before." Then, abruptly, urgently, "Do you hear that?" Just as he said it, strains of music drifted to Sora's ears.

"Look!" Sora stood up straight in his shock, wide-eyed and staring. As the music grew louder, light began to gather. It fell in strings from the sky, whirling around and around in a tight circle so that it seemed one solid mass of bright, white illumination. A large, bumpy, irregular shape began to take form in the light's center. It became clear that whatever was in the center of the brightness was playing the instrument making the music. Sora re-adopted his fighting stance, ready for anything. The light cleared, and the music stopped.

And Sora found that he wasn't quite ready for _anything_.

The two boys found themselves facing six soldiers. That they were soldiers was clear by the identical uniform each wore, but what was strange about them was the uniform itself. They were wearing Medieval-style helmets that covered their faces, as well as chain mail shirts. Over these shirts, the soldiers wore tabards emblazoned with a foreign symbol. Each was armed with a long spear and a sword. Each, that is, except one in the back, who had a sword belted to his hip, but no spear. The reason was clear when Sora saw that his hands were occupied with playing the wooden flute held to his lips.

The soldiers looked around themselves as if disoriented, before the one in front finally spotted Sora and Riku, regarding them with the same sort of surprise with which the boys were regarding him.

"There they are!" he barked to the others, who instantly snapped into aggressive postures, spears raised threateningly.

"They are children," the one with no spear murmured. He had stowed the flute in a pouch on his belt.

"So is the Princess, the Hero of Time, and that other one we found," the leader snapped. "Do not be deceived."

"Who are you?" Riku demanded. "What are you doing here?"

"We are here to destroy you," the leader replied, unsheathing his sword. The others followed suit. "Where is the third?"

"Huh?" Sora's head tipped to the side, confused. He didn't understand a word coming out of this guy's mouth. As a well-seasoned world traveler, he had seen many styles of dress, many types of weapons, many patterns of speech. Those things barely surprised him any more. What he had never seen, though, was a group of people with the ability to travel to other worlds by playing musical instruments. They didn't seem to recognize Riku or Sora—the flute-player's surprise had been a testament to that—but they still claimed to be here to kill them. And they thought there was another one of 'them'. What was going on?

"Do not dissemble," the leader snapped again. "We know there is another one of you. Where are they?"

"Eh? You mean… Kairi?" Sora blinked. His face suddenly hardened. "Like I'd tell you!"

"Then we shall be forced to search once we have disposed of you," the leader advanced, spear raised.

"Sir! The Princess told us to not engage them! This is a reconnaissance mission," the flute-player protested again.

"They are only children," the leader scoffed. "And they are hopelessly outnumbered. Are you really afraid of naïveté, fear, and dependence?" And with this inane question, the soldier leaped forward, spear aimed at Riku's exposed chest. Road to Dawn slashed downwards, deflecting the strike. As if this had been a signal, the other five knights charged.

This, Sora thought, blocking a stab at his chest and using the rebound to slam the Kingdom Key into the knight's head (the knight went down with a ringing clang of steel on steel—or whatever metal the Keyblade was made out of), was nothing like fighting Heartless or lesser Nobodies. They were _people_. They had feelings, doubts. Was he going to fight someone who clearly didn't want to fight him?

The answer was obvious as one of the soldiers' swords slipped past his guard and created a shallow slice across his cheek. Yes, he would. He had to, because as much as he didn't want to fight them, he wanted to die even less.

There was no more time to think as the flute-playing knight engaged him with an overhead blow from his sword. Sora's blade whipped up to block, just as a second soldier's spear thrust at his chest—right at his heart. Sora twirled the Kingdom Key around, taking the first knight's sword with it and putting him off-balance, at the same time twisting to the side. The spearhead cut a line across his shoulder, but did not reach his heart.

Sora dug in his heels and propelled himself backwards, giving himself a bit of breathing room. That had been way too close. He'd have to fight long-range if he wanted to avoid another attack like that. At this point, adrenalin was pumping through his system as freely and easily as oxygen. And Sora had never been much of a 'consequences' kind of guy anyway. These facts combined drove him to his next action—an action which he would regret for a long, long time afterwards.

The Hero of Light aimed the tip of his Keyblade at the flute-player's chest, dead center. The movement made his shoulder twinge.

"Firaga!" he screamed.

A burst of yellow-red flames flared outwards from the silver weapon, shooting in an arc like some sort of macabre firework, leaving a trail of fire behind it like a comet's tail. It traveled the short distance between the Kingdom Key and the soldier to impact right beneath a red triangle on the knight's tabard, at the junction between two outspread wings that were as red as fire.

As red as blood.

Later, Sora would remember that moment as silent. At the time, though, all the world was noise. The crackling explosion as hungry flames leaped up to engulf the flute-player in a vortex of red and yellow. The man's screams. The screams of the other knight Sora had been fighting and his staccato footsteps as he turned and fled. The heavy thump as the Keyblade fell from Sora's suddenly-nerveless fingers.

The softer thump as his knees landed next to it.

And a sudden silence to last for eternity.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Riku finished off the final soldier with a palm thrust upwards, catching the man on the point of his chin. The boy smirked as his opponent collapsed in a boneless heap. Why did people always assume that just because he had a sword in his hands it meant his hands themselves were out of the fight? Whatever the reason, it worked well in his favor.

The tall youth turned, bringing Road to Dawn back up to shoulder height, his feet already moving forward to take him to Sora's aid. A moment later, though, those same feet skidded to a halt, his arm dropping to his side and eyes flying wide in shock.

Riku had taken down three of the six soldiers, leaving Sora the other three. Though he himself admitted the brunet to be stronger than him, this seemed like an unexpected stroke of fairness on the part of Fate. His three opponents were currently lying facedown in the dirt behind him, weapons and wits scattered to the winds. He had expected to find a similar tableau behind him, or possibly Sora finishing off one last knight.

What he hadn't expected was Sora on his knees in the dirt, his Keyblade fallen beside him.

Riku's vision tunneled. All he saw was the blood spreading across Sora's shoulder—all but invisible against the black sleeve, but he could smell it as well—and the wide sapphire eyes, as blank as Kairi's had been when her heart had been lost, though opened to their fullest. In an instant, the silver-haired boy was at his friend's side, glaring wildly around for the one who had wounded and disarmed the Hero of Light.

There was no one. One crumpled body lay nearby, just as Riku had thought, but the other body was…

…dead, to say the least.

The boy turned away, eyes squeezed shut, fists and teeth, clenching. He wasn't squeamish, not at all. What made him turn away from the charred, blackened husk of a man was not sympathy for the dead, but for the living. Because who could have done this but Sora? Innocent, naïve, carefree Sora, who would sooner cut off his own hand than somebody else's, who couldn't even bear to watch a snake eating a toad, who routinely set struggling flies free from spider webs? It was terrible. Inconceivable.

Heartbreaking.

"Sora…" the whispered name escaped involuntarily. The brunet did not even turn. He simply knelt there, hands limp at his sides, gazing in trancelike horror at a point above the knight's body—where his face had been, when he had been standing. When he had been living.

"I… killed him…" the words were practically a wordless exhalation of breath, so softly were they spoken. "He was living but now… he's dead…"

"Sora," Riku repeated, helplessly. Road to Dawn was dismissed in a flash as the tall young man dropped to his own knees beside his friend, placing a hand on his shoulder. The hand was retracted immediately as Riku remembered Sora's wound, blood sticky on his palm. Sora didn't even flinch.

"He… he didn't want to fight us," Sora's voice was louder now, but broken—not quite sobs, but hitches, irregularities in his breathing. "He said we were just," gasp, hiccup, "children…"

"He was trying to kill you," Riku traced one finger across the slice in Sora's cheek. It was small, the sort of thing they had gotten all the time when they were smaller, playing around on rough, unsanded planks. It wasn't even bleeding anymore, unlike the cut in his shoulder. "This is proof of that. You had to protect yourself."

"They aren't dead," blue eyes finally moved, casting their gaze across the four other soldiers. "They'll wake up soon, and they'll go home and see their families, and they'll see and think and feel and breathe…! They'll live. Why couldn't he? I killed him. If he hadn't met me, he'd still be alive."

"But he did meet you," Riku shook his head. "We can't change what he did. There was no way for us to prevent him from coming here. Using Firaga on him was a mistake, yeah, but you weren't thinking. You didn't mean to. You're not used to fighting real people."

"No amount of not meaning to will make him move again," Sora's eyes finally dropped to the one place he had been avoiding—the body. Tears as clear as the sky welled up in those oceanic orbs, trickling out of the corners and down his cheeks.

Sora had cried before—many times. He cried over saying goodbye to people he'd see again. He cried for relief and happiness. He cried over so many things that it almost seemed insulting—to Sora, anyway—to now be crying over this. It was too much. It couldn't be grouped with all those other things he'd shed tears over. It was _too much_. But the more he repeated that phrase to himself, the faster the tears flowed, and the harder it became for him to breathe.

"We can't change the past, Sora," Riku said fiercely. He'd told it to himself often enough that his voice was overflowing with conviction. "Nothing can undo our mistakes, and wishing for them to go away doesn't work."

"But I can't just leave it!" Sora cried out, suddenly loud. "He's dead, Riku! And I killed him! I can't just say 'oh well, you can't change the past' and move on! Especially not two minutes after the fact!"

"I know you. If you let yourself think like this, you'll never stop," Riku argued. "I've got to tell you right now: This is terrible, it's awful, but _you haven't changed_. _You're_ not terrible or awful for having done it, because you didn't mean to. And if you can't realize that yourself, you never will, because death isn't something you can be forgiven for. Not by the one person it would matter to most." Riku's own eyes now glanced at the dead body. They snapped back to Sora, however, when the boy leaned down and shoved off with his hands, pushing himself to his feet in his usual childish, hopping way.

The Keyblade Master made his way over to the flute-player's corpse. Despite his twitching breath and flowing tears and the nausea rising in his throat, his legs never faltered as they took him to the dead man's side and deposited him there on his knees. His hands were similarly steady as they reached out to take hold of the pouch on the man's belt. The leather crumbled in his hands, flaking off like black ashes. Sora extracted its contents from the mess: a single, wooden instrument.

Sora regarded the flute for a few moments. His tears had dried, scorched away by the heat of the flames that had eaten away this man's life, now burning only in Sora's memory. His breath had calmed, slowing and shallowing and evening until he was barely taking in any air at all. It seemed irreverent, this close to the breathlessness of death.

The burnet youth brought the instrument up to his lips and held it there, eyes shut. Had the last one to hold this flute been a warrior or a musician? Where had he learned the song that had been the last thing he played? Where had he gotten the flute in the first place—as a gift, carved himself, bought on a whim, or something else? He tried to play a few notes, but his fingers didn't know how to dance across the holes, and his lips didn't know how to shape his breath.

"Sora…" Riku was standing behind him, at a loss. He didn't know what to say. He felt useless, like he was making things worse. What was he supposed to do?

As it turned out, he didn't need to do anything. At that moment, a light blinked into existence, igniting around the flute Sora held. The flute lifted away from his hand, tugged gently out of his fingers by a force beyond either boy's comprehension. Riku watched, frozen in shock as Sora rose to his feet, head tipped back to look at the flute, whose light now engulfed both instrument and boy, hiding them from the silver-haired youth's view. Behind him, the Kingdom Key disappeared, though Riku didn't see it.

When the light died down, Sora was left gazing at the two items in his hands—flute and Keyblade.

"What was that?" Riku asked quietly, unsure as to his friend's emotional state.

"Roxas," Sora's voice was as usual, if a bit subdued. "I had almost forgotten. I don't know how, but… this belongs to him. A new path has opened… and it will take me right to him. I've got to help him now more than ever."

"I told you, you aren't a bad person," Riku said. "And even if you were, doing something good can never erase your mistakes."

"I know that. But now I've got to help him more because I've realized something," Sora's eyes rose to meet Riku's. They were bone dry now, and as unyielding as blue steel. "I always thought Nobodies were different, even if they weren't worth less. I didn't think making them disappear was any big deal—they said they didn't exist themselves, right? But it's just the same. They won't breathe or think or feel or move again either. In the end, we're all the same. And if I can prevent that—even if it's just one person…" The eyes dropped once more, though they lost none of their resolve. "I never want to see another person die. Not if I could stop it. Not even if I couldn't."

"Sora…" Riku said once more. It was pathetic, he thought, that he could only repeat his friend's name over and over like some dumb bird. But that didn't make the words come. And it seemed that Sora had figured it all out on his own, anyway. He didn't need Riku's help. The silver-haired young man glanced back down at the flute, wondering at the grubby, ordinary-looking wood that had just renewed the Hero of Light's resolve.

His breath sucked in sharply. "Sora…!"

"Huh?" Sora looked down, following the other boy's turquoise gaze to his hand. Immediately, he flung it outwards, as far from him as he could get it. "Wh-what's happening?!"

"How should I know?" Riku demanded. "It looks like your hand is… glowing." That wasn't entirely true. Only the back, and only part of it, was glowing. "Take off your glove."

Sora hesitated, but removed the straps and peeled away the fabric once it became clear that the light wouldn't hurt him. Two sets of eyes—each a different shade of the ocean—gazed at the exposed back of his hand.

A shape seemed to have been burnt into the skin. It was triangular, wider towards the knuckles and pointed at the wrist. It was made up of four smaller triangles grouped together into one larger one. The smaller upside-down triangle at the top right was the one glowing.

"What is it?" Sora asked, touching the tip of his index finger to the glowing triangle.

"I don't know," Riku shook his head. "I've never seen anything like it. Has this happened before?"

"No. This is the first time I've seen it. What could have caused it?"

"Maybe it's from whatever that flute did?"

"But that's happened loads of times, and nothing like this ever happened!"

"What's up with you two?" a new voice broke into the conversation. Sora whirled around, pressing the back of his fist into the small of his back, hiding it from Kairi, who was striding across the small field towards them. Her wide eyes took in the fallen soldiers littering the ground. "What… what happened?"

"We were attacked," Riku said shortly.

"Roxas is in trouble!" Sora added with his usual vigor. All his grief seemed to have evaporated, and Riku wasn't sure whether to feel troubled or relieved by this fact. "We have to go help him."

"Um, right," Kairi blinked, momentarily taken aback, before nodding firmly. She'd find out the whole story later. Right now all that mattered was that she was not going to be left behind again. "Let's go get the Gummi Ship."

"Yeah," Sora nodded. He checked behind him and found that his hand had stopped glowing. While Kairi and Riku went ahead, he paused to pull on his glove, pulling the straps tight with his teeth. Then, pausing a moment more, the Hero of Light bent down and placed the wooden flute by one of the knights Riku had knocked out. Hopefully one of them would be able to use it to get back home when they woke up.

"Sora, come on!" Kairi called from the gate. "We've gotta get moving!" She and Riku stood framed against the street, turned back, waiting for him. The town behind them was peaceful. As they looked back at him, his surroundings were just as peaceful. But between the two kinds of peace, the two groups of people, there was an invisible line that only existed in the minds of the people themselves.

"Right!" Sora called back, breaking into a jog. His foot came down on the sidewalk beyond the park. The line remained, though; this wasn't a line that would go away easily, if ever. Sora ran away with his friends, his feet pounding the pavement with the same force and vigor as theirs.

He didn't look back.


	13. 12: The Twilight Zone

**Kitty: Okay, so so far everything's been pretty credible within canon, huh? …This one might strain credulity a bit. I couldn't help myself. Also, I've never actually played many Zelda games all the way through besides OoT and Twilight Princess. This fic was meant to set a few things up for TP, so… I'm sorry if anything I do contradicts any other LoZ game. **

**Axel: The response for last chapter was… overwhelming. **

**Kitty: When I said I wasn't depressed, it wasn't a cue for you all to desert me! –grumble- Please, if you're out there, review this one at least to tell me how ridiculous this plot twist is!**

**Axel: Are ya scared yet? :3 YearOfTheKitty does not own the Legend of Zelda or Kingdom Hearts. **

**Kitty: …Yet. –thunder, evil laughter- Enjoy… Mwahahahahaha! …Too much?**

**Axel: Too much.**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XII**

**The Twilight Zone**

"_Come with me in the twilight of a summer's night for a while_

_Tell me of a story never ever told in the past_

_Take me back to the land where my yearnings were born_

_The key to open the door is in your hand_

_Now take me there_

_To the land of twilight."_

—_Yuki Kajiura, 'Key to the Twilight'_

The flight through space was just the thing Sora needed. He poured all of his concentration into maneuvering the ship, dodging enemies and asteroids alike (it was too soon for him to attempt shooting anything down, even if he knew they were Heartless and not the same as Nobodies). It kept his mind blissfully blank and untroubled. Even so, he sometimes looked over at Riku to find the other boy looking at his hand, or at him, with the look on his face that meant he was deeply in thought. That would, in turn, cause Sora to start thinking. Needless to say, Sora soon stopped looking at Riku.

"Do we know where we're going?" Kairi asked some time later. She had managed to get Riku to tell her about Roxas, but he was extremely brief on the subject of the attack, and wouldn't tell her anything about why Sora was acting so strangely or what they had been doing when she found them. It was frustrating, but she knew that Sora, at least, wouldn't hide something from her unless he was truly upset, so she respected his privacy and didn't pry.

"Not really," Sora answered. The girl jumped, surprised. She'd been asking Riku.

"Oh. Do we know what kind of trouble Roxas is in?"

"No."

"So we're just going in blind?"

"Pretty much."

"Remind me again why I wanted to go with you knuckleheads," Kairi groaned, sagging in her seat. "I have never met two people less able to take care of themselves on their own."

"I think you just answered your own question," Riku chuckled lowly.

"It's a good thing you two are the luckiest people alive, or we'd be dead meat," Kairi sighed heavily. For some reason, her lighthearted comment made both of her companions stiffen and fall silent. She bit her lip, wondering what she'd said. She couldn't very well know what she was doing wrong if no one would tell her what was happening!

"I see it," Riku said suddenly, pointing. Sora looked and adjusted course for the rapidly-approaching world. It was very green, he noticed. No modern cities. Lots of wilderness.

"How," Kairi echoed his thoughts, "are we going to find Roxas in all of _that_?"

"It's not too late to turn back," Riku told them.

"I told you, I won't," Sora refused, face and voice grimly determined.

"Me neither. I was thinking, if Roxas is back… maybe Naminé is, too," Kairi added.

"Why would you think that?" Riku twisted to look at her.

"Who?" Sora frowned. The name sounded familiar… "Hey! That's the name we found in Jiminy's journal! And the one on the tower that time with Roxas… Who is she?"

"Kairi's Nobody," Riku replied. "You see… two years ago, just after we'd shut the door to darkness, you came across this castle—Castle Oblivion. It was controlled by Organization XIII. At the time, Naminé was being held prisoner by them. She has this power—she can rearrange the memories of anyone you've ever met, Sora, including your own memories. As you went through the castle, she made you forget that Kairi ever existed, and made you think you and I had always been friends with her instead."

"She was lonely," Kairi defended her other half. "And the Organization forced her to. They were trying to manipulate you into fighting for them by making you think they held your best friend hostage."

"Exactly. Except that things didn't go their way," Riku nodded. "To make a long story short, I took out one Organization members—I was in the castle, too, but you didn't know it—Axel took out two, and you took out two. After that, Naminé put you to sleep so that she could put your memories back the way they were, even though that involved making you forget everything that had happened in Castle Oblivion—including her."

"I don't… remember any of that…" Sora murmured. "It does explain why I woke up in that pod, though… And why Axel knew me before I knew him… and a lot of other stuff, too. Still… it's hard to believe… that I forgot so much…"

_And_, he added silently, _it means that I've killed eight Nobodies. Nine people total. That's…_ There was no word for it. Sora doubted he would ever find a word for the cocktail of guilt, shame, sorrow, regret, and self-hatred churning inside his stomach at that moment.

"Don't worry about them," Riku told him, recognizing the expression on his friend's face. "They tricked you into thinking I hated you and Kairi didn't exist, never mind how they manipulated Naminé… People like that aren't better off consumed by darkness… because they never left it to begin with."

"…Thanks," Sora mumbled. Then, louder, "Coming in for a landing. Hold on tight!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Despite his first impression from the Gummi Ship, the place he, Riku, and Kairi touched down was anything but green. Wilderness, on the other hand, it was most assuredly.

"It's a _desert_," Kairi pointed out, incredulously. Rounding on Sora, she demanded, "Why did you put us down in the middle of a _desert_?"

"I couldn't tell it was a desert from outer space!" Sora defended himself.

"What are we standing on?" Riku interrupted the argument.

"Huh?" Sora looked around him. "It looks like a cliff…"

"It's called a mesa," Kairi corrected. Just as she had said, the three Keyblade wielders stood atop a rocky cylinder of enormous proportions, at the center of a wasteland that spread out in all directions as far as they eye could see. What could not be seen, from their perspective, was the immense idol carved into the mesa's flank, and the doors leading into it.

"Whatever," Sora shrugged. "How are we going to get down?"

"I think there's a hole over there," Kairi pointed. Riku followed his friends as they made their way across the hot stone to a circular opening in the center. The chamber beneath was too dim for any details to be made out. Sora dropped through first, then Kairi, and then Riku.

"Whoa…" Sora gaped, staring around. They were in a cave, certainly, but this was no natural cave. It had been deliberately carved in a perfect circle. Bright sunlight streamed down onto a tall, oval-shaped mirror in the center of the room. The mirror's frame was stone and carved in the shape of a cobra. Four tunnels led off in all directions from the central room. Sora picked one at random and began walking down it, his friends following faithfully.

But not for long.

"It's a dead end," Riku noted.

"Sora," Kairi groaned. "Maybe I should lead."

"What's that?" Sora cocked his head to the side. This tunnel was cut off by bars running perpendicular to the floor, too close together for anyone to slip through. A large, clear crystal with a yellow center stood just in front of them. Behind them was another room, much larger than the one they had entered. It was multileveled, with a sharply sloping ceiling covered in hieroglyphs. A mirror larger than Sora himself was mounted on this ceiling, its stone frame carved with geometric designs rather than snakes.

"It's a mirror, duh," Kairi giggled joining him. "It's really pretty. I wonder why it's behind these bars."

"I wonder what this crystal is," Sora examined the formation curiously. "It's sort of like those switches in Hollow Bastion. I wonder…" He stretched out a hand and laid it on the crystal's surface. Nothing happened. "Come on, work!" Sora slammed his fist into it, frustrated. To his surprise, this seemed to do the trick, the bars sliding up into the ceiling with a metallic _shink_.

"Cool!" the brunette dashed to the edge of the room's higher level, staring avidly up at the giant mirror.

"Come on, this is wasting time," Riku came up behind Sora. "It's just a mirror, see?"

"Riku, look!" Kairi gasped. The silver-haired boy obediently tipped his head back to see the mirror. His eyes widened.

"You…! You don't have a reflection!" Sora cried, glancing rapidly between the silver-haired boy and the silver-surfaced mirror. "What's going on?"

"No, look," Kairi squinted and stood on her toes, pointing. "He's there, just really, really faint. You can hardly see him."

"Hold on," Riku told his friends. He took a few steps backward before making a running leap for the closest of the four ropes hanging down from where they were attached around the mirror's edge. He waited for the swinging to subside a bit before hauling himself up, hand over hand, making sure to keep a loop of rope between his feet. It was a long way down to the lower level, and the stone floor would splatter him like a bug if he fell on it.

He quickly reached the mirror and stretched one hand out to lightly touch the surface of the mirror. Even from this close, he could see the reflection of himself as only the faintest of smudges, easily passed off as dust on the glass or a trick of the light. There were no clues as to why he couldn't be seen. It looked just like any other mirror.

The moment his fingers came in contact with it, blinding light shot out of the mirror, causing Sora and Kairi to reel back, shielding their faces. Riku himself threw his free arm over his eyes, clutching the rope even tighter. It reminded Riku of DiZ's machine exploding, though this time he felt no surge of light within his heart, only within his retinas.

When the tall youth had lowered his arm, he saw a very different scene than when he had raised them. The room was unchanged, but the mirror was now beaming a spotlight onto the wall formed by the side of the room's higher level. Circles of light bearing foreign symbols rotated around both the spotlight and the mirror itself. Most amazingly, on the wall where the light hit, a black tunnel had appeared, lined with the same rings and symbols. Seeing them, the silver-haired youth froze in such total shock that he nearly fell off the rope to a messy, water-balloon-esque death.

He had just opened his mouth to ask what the _hell_ had just happened, when Riku felt something strange. It was… as if he had just been dropped into a tub of acid, except that there was no pain. More like a cold tablet being dissolved in a glass of water, he amended. Dissolved…

He heard Sora and Kairi shouting, but was unable to reply. It was as if his body had frozen in place. His eyes, the only part of him able to move, rolled down to stare in horror as his body disintegrated into geometric black particles from the feet up. There was no time to even think of doing anything much less enough time to do it before the process reached his head and everything became dark.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There was a flash of tangled darkness, and a slim, white creature looped out of nowhere. It poured itself back and forth rapidly, as if too exited to sit still. There was no hint of the person it must have been once in the spindly, pointed limbs, the flat-topped, zippered head, or the fluid, boneless movements. It was a perfect Nobody.

"Yes!" Roxas punched the air in triumph, doing a small victory dance. "You did it, Sheik!"

"I did," the red-eyed Nobody agreed, smiling slightly, his face lined with weariness. He did not seem quite as enthusiastic as his companion, for all that he was the one who had successfully summoned a Dusk for the first time.

"Now, dismissing it is much easier than calling it up," Roxas went back to his 'teacher' persona, a persona he had not had prior to this day, "because they understand words and hand gestures and all that when they're face-to-face with a superior Nobody. So a simple 'you're dismissed' or wave of the hand will send them packing. Try it."

"You are dismissed," Sheik told the Dusk.

"Yes, my liege," the Dusk vanished the same way it had come. Sheik felt a bit uneasy now that he was the one being addressed as 'my liege'. It was too far of a cry from his usual treatment as a 'hated Sheikah'—true enough, Impa had always deferred to him when they had been sheltering in the desert, but that was only because he had been sharing headspace with the Princess. Today was a day full of firsts for him.

"Hey, you two! What's happening?" Roxas and Sheik turned to see Axel and Link approaching. The latter faltered in his stride for a moment before hurrying to reach them, looking surprised.

"You're not covering your face!" the Hero of Time exclaimed. "What changed your mind?"

"I realized that I would not be leaving Hyrule Castle for quite some time," Sheik replied, sounding bitter. "And therefore there was no point in my concealing my face, for all here know of my circumstances."

"Zelda told the guards?" Link sounded shocked. That wasn't in the Princess's character at all…

"No, but somehow they found out, and now it is all over Castle Town," Sheik sighed heavily. "I suppose a negative reputation is nothing new for me to fret over, but this reputation is far worse than my last. Imagine, if you will, what the villagers might take into their heads to do about the 'heartless monster' living at the Castle."

"The prejudice again," Link nodded knowingly. "Don't worry about it. Zelda would never let her soldiers do anything, especially if she tells them doing it would start a war—whether or not that's true. And like you said, you're not leaving the castle any time soon, so why worry about the villagers?"

"I must live among them someday," Sheik reminded him.

"Why? You could stay here with the Princess, or come travel with me," Link offered. "I'd love the company. Epona's the best horse in the world, but she's not much of a conversationalist."

"I do not doubt it," Sheik chuckled. "…Would you truly let me travel with you? Even though I am your shadow?"

"If anything, I'd think you'd be the one with the problem following me," Link admitted. "Don't you have a second fiddle-complex like Roxas?" He glanced quickly to the side, having forgotten the Key of Destiny's presence for a moment. Fortunately, the blue-eyed blond had wandered away, and was now seated upon the edge of a fountain, fiddling with his flute. Out of earshot.

"Not particularly. I resigned myself to it, and therefore came to accept it some years ago," Sheik shrugged. "Roxas, you must understand, is for all intents and purposes, a toddler. He has only had two years of experience to draw upon. Most of the way he acts is derived from the false memories implanted within him—but in all of those memories, he was a whole, normal teenager instead of a world-traveling Nobody. He has been forced to grow up far too quickly. Much," he added thoughtfully, "as you were."

"From what I understand, the fate of Hyrule depended—and still depends—on our swift maturation," Link gazed at the boy by the fountain with sad eyes.

"Perhaps so, but that does not make it fair to you."

"I got to grow up twice," Link waved that sentiment aside. "That's more than fair. The second time I did it right—to an extent." At the other's curious glance he added, "I worked in the castle as a page while I was still a kid. It's pretty much how I would have lived if I hadn't been raised by the Kokiri, except that Zelda skipped making me a squire and knighted me the second I was old enough. Technically I'm now her personal knight-in-waiting or something like that, but everyone knows I'm the Hero of Time."

"You must have been lonely," Sheik supposed.

"Yeah… I had to leave all my friends in the forest… but it's okay, because I had Zelda and the Sages sometimes, too," Link smiled. Sheik frowned. Zelda.

"Yes, the Princess, of course. I must admit, there is something that I do not understand."

"What is it?"

"Why are you not engaged to her yet?" The question was delivered so frankly and matter-of-factly that Link choked on the breath he'd been inhaling for a moment, making an undignified snorting noise.

"I…! Why would you think we're…?" he stammered.

"It is a valid question, and a reasonable conclusion. The two of you are nigh inseparable, childhood friends, both bearers of the Triforce, both very politically powerful people… it would stand to reason that you would wed her," Sheik presented his argument without any particular inflection or emphasis, sounding for all the world as if he couldn't care less.

"Well we're not," Link told him sternly. "We're just _not_. _Goddesses_. With _Zelda_…? I mean, she's my best friend, but… that makes it even worse! Like marrying my sister or something…" He shuddered a little, though not noticeably.

"Then you will hold true to your previous engagement?" a hint of a wicked smile played about Sheik's lips as he said this.

"What do you…? _Oh_. Oh, _hell_ no," Link shuddered visibly and glared. "How could you even think that? I'm not entirely sure it's even possible for the Zora and Hylians to interbreed…"

"There is always Saria," Sheik offered. "Or Malon. Or essentially any girl in the kingdom you liked."

"What is up with you trying to marry me off?" Link demanded. "Cut it out, okay? I'm fine like I am. I don't want to marry any girl."

"Does that mean what I think it…?"

"Maybe. Yes," Link was agitated. "Forget I said anything, okay?" He turned to leave. He was forestalled, however, by a slim hand upon his shoulder.

"I understand, Hero. I am half of you, after all," Sheik smiled. Link's own lips curved in response. It was impossible not to, not now that he could finally see the other boy's _smile_ instead of just squinted eyes. It was practically a crime to cover that up with a hood or a cowl, he thought somewhat dazedly.

"Thanks," he replied, still smiling. Then, "You know, if you're so hung up on marriage, _you've_ got some options, too, you know…"

"Like whom?" Sheik lifted one eyebrow, playing along with the Hero's teasing.

"That Naminé girl at the Ranch wasn't so bad, huh? Although, come to think of it, Roxas probably got there first."

"No, trust me," Sheik glanced over his shoulder, now smiling for a different reason. "Roxas is spoken for. And not by Naminé."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Whatcha doing there, Rox?" Axel's voice intruded on Roxas's thoughts, breaking through the burbling song of the fountain like one discordant note in a symphony. His fingers curled around the flute tightly.

"What's it look like?" he snapped back.

"Ooh, touchy today."

"I still remember what happened the last time you got me on my own," Roxas retorted. Axel rolled his eyes.

"I kissed you, Roxas, it's not like I groped you or something." Two red eyebrows shot upwards. "…Sa-_ay_…"

"I'm leaving."

"No, no," Axel laughed, catching Roxas's arm as he rose. The redhead sank to the edge of the fountain, pulling the blond down with him. "Stay. I'm sorry."

"You should be…" Roxas muttered. He quickly cast his eyes down, but Axel caught the wince that had crossed his face.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"My arm," Roxas tried to pull away from his partner's grip, but the Flurry of Dancing Flames would not let go. "It's burned…"

"From that darkness, right?" Axel slid the boy's sleeve up his arm, examining the skin carefully. His grip was firm, yet gentle, the kind of grip you were supposed to use when handling small animals. "Strange that this is all that happened. Strange, but lucky for you."

"I guess…" Roxas shifted. He decided not to say what he'd been about to. "Anyway, could you let me go?"

"It's probably better not to try curing it with magic," Axel decided, releasing his arm. "Who knows how much worse we could make it."

"Gee, I didn't know you cared," the sarcastic comeback was out of his lips before Roxas could stop it. Immediately, he wished he could call them back. Axel, though, did not react as he had expected. Instead of grinning and leaning closer as he had on the previous occasion, the redhead leaned back and looked up at the sky, laughing a little.

"Yeah, you never did, did you?" he agreed. "You can be so dense."

"I'm sorry," Roxas suddenly apologized. At Axel's look, he continued, "For saying that stuff about how nobody would miss me if I left before I betrayed the Organization—for making you think I hated you. I didn't mean it. And I would understand if you don't want to be my partner anymore after that…" The torrent of words was cut off by a familiar pressure on his lips.

This time, the blond relaxed into the kiss, and even kissed back. It was nice, safe, tender, reassuring—many adjectives that Roxas would not have imagined could ever apply to _Axel_. It still tasted like mint.

"I could never hate you, you moron," Axel said when they had pulled apart, smiling. Not smirking, but _smiling_, his eyes flickering with something Roxas had never seen before, something he had no name for. "Oh, and by the way, Rox? Nice try."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The world pieced itself back together around Riku in much the same way it had dissolved. The sudden switch from existing to not and back again left the boy drained with shock—both mental and physical—and he sat down suddenly, gasping. His hands flew up to his chest, his legs, his head, making sure everything was correct and accounted for. Though everything seemed to be in place, he wondered if somewhere along the way the particles that had been his eyes hadn't been damaged or rearranged, because he was seeing the wrong colors.

"Ugh…" a groan behind him, caused the tall young man to leap to his feet and spin around, raising his arms defensively. A moment later, he lowered them and took a step forward.

"Sora! Kairi!" he cried.

Sure enough, both teens stood behind him, looking about as disoriented as he felt. To be accurate, Kairi was standing behind him—though swaying on her feet and looking dizzy—while Sora was on his hands and knees, groaning and looking sick.

"Are you okay?" Riku asked.

"I'm fine," Kairi shook her head firmly, shaking away her dizziness like a dog shaking water from its coat.

"Me too," Sora added, shoving himself to his feet and clutching his stomach. "But I do _not_ want to do that again." Deep blue eyes blinked, scanned from left to right, and blinked again. "Uh, Riku? Kairi? You seeing what I'm seeing?"

"It's like a photo negative," Kairi observed.

"Not really," Riku disagreed, frowning. "They aren't opposite colors, just… the wrong ones."

The three Keybladers stood on a platform made of greenish-gray stone. Above them, clouds as black as tar swirled around in a pink-yellow sky that continued down and around. The platform was floating. In every direction, black particles could be seen flying upwards. Perhaps it was these that made the clouds, Riku thought, kind of like rain in reverse. In any case, shapeless black masses could also be seen farther out—possibly more platforms, like the one they now stood upon.

Directly beneath their feet was an intricate ring like those in the tunnel, this one glowing yellow. Riku hastily stepped off it, followed by Sora and Kairi. None of them wanted to go through that breaking-down-and-reassembling process again. Not before they'd figured out what was going on, at least.

Ahead, around a slight curve, was a circular plaza of bluish stone at the edge of the platform. A ramp of the same blue-gray material spanned the gap between the platform's edge and the door of a castle built upon a smaller floating rock, purple-gray this time. On either side of the castle stood straight gray buildings, built on two jutting protrusions so that they were connected to the main platform. Glowing red symbols burned above the doors of these flanking buildings.

"What is this place?" Kairi whispered. It was dark, it was cold, it was hostile. It was—quite literally—worlds away from her bright, beloved Islands, not even similar to the sun-scorched desert they had come from. Most of all, it was as if a blanket had fallen on them, muffling all sounds. Her words sounded as if spoken through thick fabric. Turning to look at her companions, she saw that the odd light in this place blurred their edges and faded them, like old photographs. It was disconcerting.

"A world within a world?" Sora guessed, thinking of the computer in Hollow Bastion.

"Or another world connected to the first one," Riku said. "I think we should go back."

"But what if this is where Roxas is?" Sora asked. "Maybe this is where he went; maybe he needs help because he's trapped here!"

"There's nobody here!" Riku flung out his arm, encompassing the desolation around them. "I don't know what that mirror was, but if it wasn't a trap, I don't know what is.

And we walked right into it. There's probably no way back now."

"If there's no one here, there's no reason not to take a look," Kairi argued. "And if there's no way back, there's nothing else to do, so why not? Come on, let's go!" And with that, the auburn-haired young woman ran forward, heading for the ramp leading to the castle. Sora took off after her. Riku, with a final noise that was half-sigh, half-despairing groan, began to run also.

The trio soon mounted the blue stone pathway, only to find themselves stymied. The doors were big, and there were no handles on the outside. There was no way in.

Sora stepped up and began pounding on the door with his fist. "Hey! Anybody in there?! We want to come in!"

"I told you…" Riku began. Unexpectedly, the door Sora had been knocking on swung outward, nearly sweeping the brunet off the ramp. He managed to leap out of the way just in time, landing practically on top of Riku. The taller boy shoved the shorter one off him, leaning forward to peer into the castle's recesses.

It appeared to be a standard castle foyer. Across an expanse of flagstone flooring, a grand staircase curved upwards to a gallery that led to the upper floors. Wooden doors with arched tops led to side-rooms, the size of the door directly proportional to the importance of the room it led to (or so Riku was left to assume). The only things that set this castle apart from any other was the glowing orb near the cathedral ceiling, illuminating the space like a miniature sun with the same distorted light as outside, and the swirling designs carved into the floor and walls.

_It looks,_ Sora thought, tipping his head back to squint at the 'sun', _like we're underwater. All wavery and blurry…_

"Come on," he said out loud. "It would be rude to make them open it and then not go in." He led the way into the entrance hall, still looking around curiously. He could feel the tension radiating from Riku behind him. Kairi was subdued, though he couldn't tell whether it was awe, fear, or wariness that kept her quiet and close behind him.

All three snapped around when the door slammed shut behind them with a resounding crash. They blinked at the doors for a few moments before turning around and continuing onwards. Now Sora and Kairi were just as tense as Riku. Every now and then, one of the teen's right hands would flex, as if itching to summon his or her weapon. But no one did.

Cautiously, they mounted the steps. Riku tensed even further. If there was going to be an attack, this was where it would happen—their unconsciously-formed battle formation was no good here, their balance was easy to upset, and maneuverability was limited. He was still tense as they reached the upper gallery, now even more so. What was this? No one was attacking, but why would they have been brought to this world, this castle, if not as a trap? It occurred to Riku that their 'host' might have friendly intentions, but if so, why had her or she not greeted them at the portal? And the surroundings themselves were anything but welcoming…

Finally, he could take it no longer.

"Whoever you are, come out and show yourself and spare us these games!" Riku called out, startling his companions.

There was no answer.

"Answer me! I know you're there. Why have you brought us here?" the silver-haired boy tried again.

"We can't trust you if you hide like this," Kairi added. Finally, a voice answered. It came from a half-open door down at the end of the gallery. The door was of medium size, and a small amount of golden light spilled out over the threshold. The voice was that of a man, though it bore a strange accent that made its age impossible to determine.

"I have brought you nowhere. You alone chose to enter the castle, and to touch the mirror, before that. If anyone should be asking for what purpose you have come, it should be me."

"We came by accident," Sora explained as he walked towards the door, friends beside him. "We didn't know touching the mirror would bring us here."

"Then perhaps time has passed more quickly than I had realized, for in my day, only the Sages and rulers were permitted within the Spirit Temple, and there has yet to be a Sage or ruler unaware of the Mirror of Twilight," the voice replied mildly.

"We're kinda… lost," Sora admitted, reaching out a hand to push the door inwards, stepping across the threshold. Riku was practically stepping on his heels as he passed through the doorway as well.

They found themselves in what appeared to be a study. Everything was bathed in the golden-orange light of sunset, from the honey-tinted wooden bookshelves that lined the walls to the red-highlighted walnut desk to the man himself seated behind it.

Sora, Riku, and Kairi stopped dead in the doorway when they saw the man. He was unlike anything even Sora, who had been all over the multiverse, had seen. His limbs were long, stretched, like a normal human put through a taffy puller—though his torso and stomach were thicker. His skin was blue-gray in color, and his eyes were wine red. His platinum-colored hair was receding from his forehead. He was clothed in dark blue robes that draped around his frame and made him seem larger than he was.

"For a Light Dweller to have wandered into the Twilight Realm, you must be lost indeed," the creature observed. "And yet you are unlike any Hylian I have ever seen. Perhaps the time really has passed… tell me, young one, how long has it been since the Hyrulean Civil War?"

"Um," Sora blinked. "I don't know. We're not from… wherever you just said. We're not Hylian."

"I see. It would seem to follow that if there is a Light Realm and a Twilight Realm, so there must be at least one other, if not more," the man nodded. "I am Gorm, the Twilight King. I am what you would call a Twili. Who and what might you be?"

"I'm Sora," Sora thumped himself on the chest before gesturing to either side of him as he spoke. "These are my friends Riku and Kairi. Uh, I guess you could say we're…" He trailed off, glancing at Riku for help.

"Islanders," the turquoise-eyed youth supplied.

"Yeah, Islanders," Sora nodded. "So the place we were in before… that was the Light Realm? And this is the Twilight Realm."

"Correct. The Mirror of Twilight is the only path between the two. Unfortunately, it is one-way. Once you have come here, you are stuck for life," Gorm seemed to adopt a sympathetic expression as he said this, but his features were almost completely flat, making it difficult to tell. It did not help that his blue skin was creased and lined with wrinkles (causing Riku to assume the Twilight King to be an old man, though for all he knew of Twili features, wrinkles were a sign of youth).

"But…!" Sora jerked back in shock. "But we have to get out! I have to find Roxas; he's in trouble! I can't be stuck here!"

"Calm down for a moment. There is no hurry. Slow down and tell me who this Roxas is and how you came here and then I may be able to help you," Gorm folded his hands before him and waited.

"Well, Roxas is… it's hard to explain…" Sora struggled.

"Sora is Roxas's heart, and Roxas is Sora's body," Riku assisted his friend once more. "They were separated into two people."

"Yeah," Sora nodded. "But we're still connected, so I can tell when he's in trouble. A little while ago, I felt him calling for help, and it led me to the desert where we found that Spirit Temple, I guess. We found the mirror inside it, and Riku touched it because he was trying to figure out why he didn't have a reflection in it, and it teleported us here."

"I see…" Gorm bowed his head, digesting the story. "So you must return to the Realm of Light to aid your missing half. I am sorry to say that parts of your story do not add up. The Spirit Temple is fraught with traps and monsters. How did three children manage to make their way through it?"

"We had our own way of transporting ourselves, like your mirror," Riku made a face. "And it put us on the roof with no way down." Gorm chuckled at that.

"That would make sense, yes. But you still have not said… where are you from?"

"A long, long way away," Sora shrugged. "You wouldn't know it."

"How old are you three?"

"Seventeen," Sora responded automatically, before he had registered what an odd question it was.

"Me too," Kairi said.

"I'm eighteen. Why do you want to know?" Riku finished.

"You are mere children," the Twili said, ignoring his query. "What of your families? They would let you travel such a long way to such a dangerous place all alone?"

Sora shifted uncomfortably. "My dad's gone and my mom… she's still there, but she went a little… weird after Dad left." He did not elaborate, and nobody pressed him. It was clearly a personal subject. Riku and Kairi knew that it was each of their odd family situations that had helped bring the three children together in the first place. It was what had bound them far tighter to each other than to the other three. It was a large part of the reason they had wanted to sail away from the Islands all those years ago, however carefully they had covered it up with façades of smiles and curiosity.

"My foster parents work round the clock," Kairi shrugged. "It's not that they don't care, it's just that they're really busy and trust me to be responsible on my own."

Now it was Riku's turn. He took a deep breath. He'd never really told anyone before, since Sora had always known them in the same way Riku had—since they had grown up practically as a single entity, so close were they—and Kairi had heard about them from Selphie, who thrived on gossip and didn't care whether or not the listener wanted to hear it.

"I was adopted. I never knew my real parents and I never want to. My foster parents… they really don't care. Mom drinks and Dad prefers operating on drugged-up people (he's a doctor) than dealing with aware ones—and when he comes home he sleeps until his next shift anyway. They didn't even notice when I went missing for two years. Or just didn't care," he crossed his arms and glared off to the side. It was an awkward subject, he knew, and people tended to drop the subject as if it were a murder weapon shortly after it was brought up.

Then again, he wasn't entirely sure the Twili counted as 'people' anyway.

"Why do you say you have no desire to learn about your real parents? If these foster ones are as bad as you say…"

"I just don't," Riku transferred his glare to the man's face. "They gave me up. Whatever made them do it… it couldn't have been worse than having parents who don't give a damn whether you live or die. Then again, if they gave me up, they must not care either. Either way, I don't want to know them. I can take care of myself, like I always have." He fully expected that to end the conversation. He couldn't have been brought here just to discuss his adoption, right? And yet…

"But what if you found them?"

"Look," Riku exploded, "I don't know what your deal is, but I'm not going to talk about this with you! You're _way_ too interested in the personal lives of total strangers. So why don't you just put us back in that temple thing you found us in and _leave me alone_?!"

"You know what I am about to tell you," the Twilight King observed. "Why do you fight? You know it is true, even if you do not know how."

"It's not true!" Riku snarled.

"What's he talking about, Riku?" Sora broke in worriedly. "What's not true?" Was this, he wondered, the real reason Riku had been so on edge ever since the tunnel had appeared?

"I shall have to show you, then," the man gestured with one robed arm. Oddly, Riku's shirts began to dissolve into geometric flecks of blackness that flew upwards, leaving the boy's torso bare.

"No!" Riku cried out, crossing his arms over his chest in a strangely modest gesture and looking angrier than Sora had ever seen him. "Give them back! I don't want them to see!"

"Riku, what's…?" Kairi trailed off. She was more behind him than Sora was, affording her a view of the tall youth's back. Instead of the smooth, unbroken expanse of skin she had expected, there was something else. It couldn't have been a tattoo, but the red-haired girl didn't know what else it could be. Riku, seeing there was no more point in hiding, dropped his arms with a sigh of defeat. Sora gasped.

A design circled over Riku's right shoulder and under his left armpit, like a sash. Across his back it was simple: three parallel lines. Across his chest, however, the lines ended at one end in a connected circle with a dot in the center. The remaining ends separated to form a larger half-circle around the smaller one, doubling back at the ends in an intricate pattern reminiscent of the carvings adoring the floors and walls, except that these lines were luminous green. They glowed like the lights on a Dusks' sides.

"The designs go down your legs, too, do they not?" Gorm questioned, as utterly calm as he had been throughout the meeting.

"Just the left one," Riku glared blue-green murder at the Twili man.

"They're… they're the same shapes as on the walls and the tunnel," Sora whispered. "Riku… what are they?"

"Birthmarks," Riku shrugged, the lines on his back rippling as his shoulder blades dipped. "I've always had them. Frankly, I'm amazed I could hide them this long. You were just too oblivious to wonder why I always went swimming in my clothes."

"I did notice…" Sora mumbled, a little ashamed. He really had noticed and thought his friend's habit odd, but the conclusion he had come to had been so completely off the mark that now he was sorry he'd ever thought it. But Riku's parents obviously didn't like him and his mom was an alcoholic, so what was Sora supposed to have thought besides some kind of abuse? It wasn't as if Riku would just open up about that kind of thing, not even to him…

"Look, they've seen, so can I just have my shirts back?" Riku demanded. At the King's gesture, the black particles rained back down to form the boy's usual sleeveless black zip-up that left his midriff bare and yellow-collared white vest that covered no more of his arms than his shirt did.

"But it doesn't make any sense," Kairi protested. "I mean, I washed up on the beach of the Islands… but Riku's been there since he was a baby! He couldn't be from this Twilight Realm. And beside the markings and the hair, he looks nothing like a Twili."

"I do not profess to know myself," the Twilight King admitted. "Though… your appearance does bring to mind an ancient Twili story…"

"A fairy tale?" Sora asked.

"No. History. Centuries ago, a great war was fought in the Realm of Light. In those days, the Twili lived among the Hylians just as the Zoras and Gorons do now, though I do not suppose you would have heard of them if you are ignorant of the Hylians. At that time we looked quite different, and were known as the Sheikah. In any case, this war I speak of was actually a series of several wars fought over a powerful artifact left by the three Goddesses after the creation of the world," King Gorm cleared his throat.

"A few of our number discovered a secret art unknown to the other races. Now, most of us would never have attempted what occurred next; our kind had vowed to serve and protect the Hylians since time out of mind. And yet a few were dissatisfied with our status as servile, inferior beings to be scoffed at and spat on in the streets. They used this dark magic in an attempt to establish dominion over the Goddesses' power. The Goddesses saw this and were displeased by the breaking of our vow. As a result, the entirety of our race was cast into the Twilight Realm as punishment."

"That's not fair!" Sora spoke up, outraged. "You said most of you wouldn't do it! Why did everyone get punished for what only some of you did?"

"There is no way of knowing how the Goddesses' minds work," Gorm sighed tiredly. "Though we have asked ourselves the same thing many times over. It could be that they saw within us the potential to do the same and acted accordingly. It might have been simply to make sure it would never happen again; as an example to the others. As I said, there is no way of knowing. The fact remains that we were banished."

"Can't you just use that mirror to go back?" Kairi asked. "Maybe not back to the Light Realm, but somewhere else?"

"The Light Realm is everywhere beyond the Twilight," the Twili man shook his head. "Besides which, a curse was placed upon our kind. We can never dwell within the Light again. As an additional curse, the harsh magics of this place have warped us beyond what we once were. We have become nigh unrecognizable in appearance, and our lifespans have extended tremendously—perhaps the Goddesses wished to prolong our suffering instead of offering us the sweet release of the darkness."

"But how does that relate to me?" Riku demanded.

"Initially after our banishment, there were many, many attempts to return," the red eyes misted over in remembrance. "As I said, this occurred centuries ago. I was young then, perhaps half your own ages. Many Twili—Sheikah, then—disappeared, never to be seen again. It is possible that one succeeded, and I believe I know just the one. He was a young man, smarter than most. He waited, biding his time while he concocted a plan to escape our purgatory. By the time he had succeeded, he had warped—though not completely. About halfway, I would say, between your appearance and my own."

"How did he get out?" Sora wanted to know.

"He whistled. One of the many magics of the Realm of Light is the art of teleportation songs. To do this, one plays a certain song on any instrument—this song acts as a key, which opens a pathway to a predetermined location. The Light Realm is positively riddled with these myriad passageways (even if many of the songs to open them have been lost to time) and playing the wrong song can even take the player to other realms beyond this one," the old man nodded sagely. "Because of this risk, few attempted escape the way he had, and the fact that he never returned was viewed as proof that he had failed. The reason your appearance reminded me of this man in particular—for though I have said they were few in number, he was certainly not the only one to have attempted to exploit the songs to escape—was his own strange circumstance. This Sheikah in particular happened to be one in a million who was married to a Hylian woman. She was with child at the time, and banished with us—though she escaped along with her husband."

"So you think that they escaped and had… me," Riku summarized. "But how did they get to the Islands, then?"

"Again, I can only theorize, but it seems likely that they would have fled Hyrule. After all, they were exiled criminals, and wore the appearance of monsters to Hylian eyes. It is entirely possible that they fled to your Islands. Of course, this was all about… oh, quite a while ago. It is doubtful that this man was your father—far more probable that he was your grandfather. Through two generations of marriage to Hylians, the Twili blood within you would have thinned to the point that you hardly look it at all," Gorm smiled suddenly. "Although there is a resemblance. Your height, your hair, your facial features…"

"You do have a flat nose," Kairi offered.

"He doesn't need your help!" Riku snapped tetchily. He absently raised one hand to his chest, tracing the markings beneath his shirt. He'd never shown them to anyone. He'd always suspected it was this birth defect that made him so distasteful to his parents. After all, the lines _glowed_. That was not a human feature, glowing skin patterns.

And yet, to be related to one of the creatures that sat before him? It was mind-boggling. Yet the proof was all around him, and the man's story even sounded plausible if one was judging by the standards of some of the other stories he'd swallowed in the past (a virtual world real people could live inside and interact with, people who refused to die but instead continued to haunt you in an attempt to posses your body, playing cards that create entire worlds within a single floor of an average-sized castle, etc.).

"Your Majesty, forgive the intrusion, but the others are demanding to know what is… going… on…" Sora, Riku, and Kairi heard the voice from the hallway even before the door was shoved open, another Twili striding into the room, trailing off and staring as he caught sight of the room's occupants. The trio regarded him with the same expressions. His skin was the same color as the King's, though his eyes were yellow, and two dots graced his cheekbones (slightly reminiscent of Axel's tattoos). He was bald, far skinnier than the King, and about as tall as Riku. He was wearing robes as well, but on a much smaller, more casual scale.

"Ah, Zant, welcome," Gorm took the boy's (for a boy he must have been) entrance in stride. "This is our guest Riku and his friends Sora and Kairi. Riku, this is Zant."

"Hello," Sora greeted the newcomer, slightly perplexed by the introduction. Or rather, by his status within it as an afterthought.

"Light dwellers? In Twilight?" Zant seemed to be in shock. "Your Majesty, this is absurd! They do not belong here! Certainly not inside the castle…"

"They are our guests," Gorm repeated firmly. "And you may tell the others that while I am King I shall divulge information when I see fit to and not before. But first, stay a moment." He turned his attention back to Riku. "I am sorry, but as I have said, there is no way back. You must remain here with us. For now, you may stay here in the castle. Zant, please show them to one of our unoccupied rooms. I will send for you later." The Twilight King looked down at his desk, at the papers he had been reading when the three had first come in. They were dismissed.

"But wait!" Zant cried, clenching his fists. Gorm glanced back up, as if surprised not to be instantly obeyed.

_Well,_ Riku thought, _he_ is _the king…_

"Who are they that they should get special privileges?" he demanded. "They are Light Dwellers, that's who! The ones who banished us unjustly! We should be burning them at the stake, not… not… throwing away our hospitality on them!"

"Who are they, you ask?" the King smiled amusedly. "I cannot speak for the other two, but I can tell you quite accurately who Riku here is to have hospitality thrown away on him. He is a Light Dweller, yes, but Twili blood runs in his veins, however diluted. And that blood, Zant, is the same as yours."

"Wh-what?" the young Twili sputtered. Riku, too, looked up sharply.

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Gorm answered, "that the Twili who escaped with his Hylian wife all those years ago… was my brother. Making the two of you second cousins, I believe."

Zant and Riku switched their disbelieving stares to each other. Neither was impressed with what he saw. Sora and Kairi watched them from where they appeared to have faded into the background (in the Twili's eyes, at least).

Riku's secret had been revealed. He had found an extended family that didn't particularly like him (though they seemed prepared to 'adopt' him) in a place he certainly did not want to live in. Roxas was still in trouble somewhere. Naminé might or might not have been somewhere out there as well. They still didn't know what was on Sora's hand.

And now they were stranded.

Yeah, that about summed it up.


	14. 13: Connections

**Kitty: This one's exactly half as long as the last chap... Sorry about that. It's mostly just a test to see if ffn has decided to stop being a stupid glitchy mess yet. If I did not reply to your review, blame ffn. I definitely read it and I definitely thank you for it! Know that there is attempted witticism in my heart that will never reach you... –sniff- But! There's no sense crying over every mistake! You just keep on trying till you run out of cake!**

**Axel: YearOfTheKitty is clearly not nearly sane enough to have come up with Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda. **

**Kitty: Whoever gets that reference wins epically. ~_^ It's one of my mottos.**

**Axel: ...What are the others?**

**Kitty: 'Those who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point' and 'try not to die'.**

**Axel: Wow. I'm impressed. One of those was actually semi-wise. Kudos.**

**Kitty: Yay! Everyone who reads this gets cake AND entertainment (I hope)! And they're not dead! Enjoy, O you followers of my creed!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XIII**

**Connections**

"_I sense much fear in you."_

—_Yoda, 'Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace'_

"That guy is your great-uncle?" Sora whispered to Riku as they followed the Twili boy down the halls of the castle, glancing over his shoulder at the door they had left. "I mean, he looked old, but not _that_ old…"

"Twili live for far longer than _your kind_," Zant spat over his shoulder. "And we have better hearing, too."

"And how old are you, Zant?" Riku asked quietly. The boy seemed flustered.

"I… it's not… seventeen…" he finally sighed.

"Look at that, the same age as Sora," Riku commented. "Longevity doesn't mean anything if you haven't lived that long yourself. You're still just a kid like us."

"I don't get it," Zant suddenly said. "You look and act almost like a Light Dweller… but your scent is that of a Twili's. You have both light and dark in you."

"Yeah," Riku said tiredly. This again. "They told me I was the only one to walk the path between… but judging by this world, I'd say they weren't very well-informed."

"It's a realm, not a world," Zant snapped back. "It's just a blocked-off part of the same world. Don't you know anything?"

"If they're still connected," Sora frowned in thought, leaning forward to speak softly to Riku, "do you think my Keyblade would unlock it and set them free?"

"Do you even _remember_ the rules of being a Keyblade Master?" Riku despaired in a whisper. "That would be meddling on the largest scale imaginable."

"But we can't just leave them here," Sora argued.

"We can and we must. It doesn't mean _we_ have to stay here, though," Riku amended. "So I was thinking about what the Twilight King said about those teleportation songs… that must be how those soldiers got to the Islands, before." Both boys winced a little at the reminder, and Riku hurried on. "He also said that when they're not in use, they're just a bunch of tunnels all over the Light Realm. So if I could just open a dark portal…"

"But you can't," Sora objected. "There's no darkness in you anymore—remember what happened on the tower?"

"Maybe not," Riku didn't sound convinced.

"Here is your room," Zant turned to face his charges. Riku jolted in surprise. He hadn't realized how far they'd been walking… though now he held a vague recollection of climbing some stairs…

"Thanks," Sora grinned.

"Don't bother," Zant scoffed, beginning to walk away. "If it were my decision, you'd have been executed on the spot—filthy Light Dweller…"

"Friendly guy," Kairi noted.

"He and Riku are related?" Sora shook his head in wonderment. "I guess there's one in every family…"

"It's starting to look like _I'm_ the odd one out in this family," Riku sighed, pushing open the door that Zant had left them standing in front of. Sora and Kairi followed him into the room, looking around. There wasn't much to see. The room was basic, if a bit odd—two beds with cotton sheets and a nightstand between bearing a small candelabra, a table and some chairs in the corner, a glazed window affording an unobstructed view of black-speckled, pink-yellow infinity. All was lit by another small 'sun' near the ceiling in the center of the room.

"I call first dibs on the bathroom," Kairi sang out, heading for a small door Riku hadn't noticed in his initial perusal of the room, which presumably led to an adjoining bathroom—though God only knew whether or not they had plumbing in this world…

"Hey, no fair, Kai!" Sora laughed good-naturedly, waving her away. "You take it. We men don't need to bathe every ten minutes, right, Riku?"

"It would be progress for you to take a shower every ten days, Sora," his friend responded, almost mildly. His mind was clearly on other things

"And I'm not entirely sure you qualify as a 'man' just yet!" Kairi's voice called out from behind the door. Sora sat on the edge of the nearest bed, removed a shoe, and lobbed it at the door.

"Take a bath already! And no more talking!" he sent his instructions after the shoe.

"Aye-aye, sir!" Kairi responded before obediently falling silent. Riku threw himself down on the other bed, face up, staring directly at the 'sun'. He wondered if it would blind him if he looked at it long enough.

Sora, on the other hand, was looking at his friend. He knew that he should probably be seeing him in a different light now. His deeply-buried assumption had been torn away—and though that should have changed the way he viewed Riku… it just didn't. He couldn't explain it. Riku was still Riku to him. Tall, dark, introverted, frequently disappearing, and his match in swordsmanship. His best friend. Just Riku. That was the start and end of it.

"…Why are you staring at me?" Riku hesitated before asking. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear what Sora thought of that day's happenings.

"No reason," the brunet shrugged and fell backwards, hands under his head as he 'sun-gazed' with Riku. Riku blew a sigh. He should have known Sora would say something like that. It was Sora, after all.

"I was just thinking…" the Hero of Light continued after a moment. Riku shut his mouth on what he'd been about to say. "How do those lines glow?" Riku blinked at him, speechless, before bursting out into breathless laughter.

"How should I know?" he gasped between chuckles. "They just… just do!"

"Heh," Sora smiled, glad he'd been able to cheer the taller boy up. "At least we'll never lose you in the dark now. You just have to whip off your shirts."

"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Riku smirked. Sora sat up, looking confused.

"Huh?"

"When the King took my shirts, _someone_ was checking me out and let me tell you, it wasn't Kairi," Riku rolled over onto his stomach to better grin wickedly at his friend. Sora, for his part, flushed from collarbones to hairline, ears included.

"I…! I was NOT! Y-You're _crazy_!" he shouted.

"Methinks the Hero doth protest too much," Riku drawled.

"Sh-shut up!" Sora crossed his arms and huffed, trying to look irritated. The best he could manage was pouty. "Anyway, speaking of the dark…" both boys sobered as the topic turned, "do you really think you could open a portal?"

"I hope so," was Riku's unhelpful reply. "I _think_ so, since the magic that made this place is so much like my own. I should be able to draw enough power from it to stimulate my darkness again."

"But aren't you afraid?" Sora asked. "You were so… so…" he struggled for words, but didn't find any. There was no way for him to describe the mixture of shame, fear, anger, and self-hatred Riku had displayed on the previous occasions he had used darkness.

"I know," Riku saved him in a quiet voice. "But really… after talking with DiZ and Naminé in Castle Oblivion—Naminé especially… I accepted it as part of me. Really, the part I was upset about after that was turning into Ansem. It made me think that maybe it really wasn't possible to walk between light and dark—or that it was impossible to use the darkness and not be evil yourself. It bothered me because I lost my light, and that's part of me, just like my darkness… But then DiZ's machine flooded me with light and my dark was gone, too. _Just_ when I'd finally accepted myself as I am, all _that_ had to happen…" He shook himself, hair rippling, and brought himself back to the topic at hand.

"In any case, the bottom line is that I'm not only not afraid to reclaim my darkness, I'm _eager_ to." Sora aimed a look at his friend. He couldn't imagine anything less eager-sounding than Riku's usual quiet monotone at that moment. "But where should I open the portal to? I don't really want to travel across a whole desert…"

"We could ask to see a map of the Light Realm before we leave," Sora suggested.

"Then they'd want to come with us."

"They aren't?" Sora blinked, genuinely surprised. Riku rolled his eyes.

"_No_, they _aren't_. We can't transplant a whole civilization, Sora! That's crossing the line from meddling to all but playing God. Besides, they were banished, supposedly by their Goddesses. Do you want to get on the bad side of a couple of obviously vindictive deities? Not to mention _why_ they were banished in the first place…"

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Sora exclaimed. "Sheesh, you don't have to lecture me. I was just asking."

"Sorry."

"That's okay," Sora grinned. "Just make sure you land us in the right place, okay? I'd really hate to get lost in the dark and lose my heart again…"

"Don't say that!" Riku shoved himself up on his arms, expression frantic.

"Why not?"

"I am _not_ going to save Roxas for you if you croak. If you lose your heart, Kairi and I are turning right back around and flying home. Got that?"

"Yeah, yeah," Sora fell back, pouting again. "Jeez, and I thought you were _worried_ about me for a second there…"

Riku pretended not to hear the boy's mutter. In truth, it really had been worry for Sora that had prompted his outburst. Sora, dead? The idea just didn't click. There was no way for him to imagine a world—any world—without Sora's exuberant grin, his sulky pout, his noble courage, his sparkling eyes… It just didn't make any sense. To hear Sora talk so casually about something like that was more than Riku could take.

Really, the fact of the matter was that he was afraid. Truly, scared to death. Not of his darkness, but of a myriad other things. What if he really did screw up the portal and they ended up somewhere there was no getting out of? What if they dropped into the middle of the desert and died of thirst? What if he wasn't strong enough to open a portal, even with his darkness back? What if he couldn't get his darkness back and they were stuck with his great-uncle and hostile second-cousin for the rest of their lives—however short they might be? What if Ansem returned from the dead yet again and took him over? And if that happened, what if Ansem made him fight Sora again? What if…? What if…?

_I'm such a coward,_ he squeezed his eyes shut and fisted his hands in the blankets, disgusted. _Sora wouldn't be so insecure about this. He's brave. I'm not. I'm so scared…_

"Riku!" Sora's shout pulled the boy instantly upright, like a puppet on a string. His head flew to the side, scanning the room for danger. There was none. He glanced at Sora questioningly, only to find the boy gaping in horror.

At him.

"L-Look!" he pointed. Riku looked down, feeling a distinct sense of déjà vu. Sure enough, the back of his right hand was glowing. The same brown lines were etched into his skin, forming one big triangle made out of four smaller ones. This time, though, the one glowing was the upside-down one on the top left.

"Another one?" he sighed, weary to the bone of inexplicable oddities. "I wonder what it is this time…"

"Fear," Sora pronounced. Riku looked up, too worn out to be surprised anymore.

"What?"

"It appeared when you got scared," the blue-eyed youth replied, looking into his face earnestly. "And before, that soldier asked the… the other one if he was scared of fear, naïveté, and dependence. Your triangle appeared when you were afraid…"

"…and yours when you were being naïve," Riku finished. "But what are they?"

"I don't know. But if you're fear and I'm naïveté, then dependence must be…"

"Hey, guys, the bathroom is free!" Kairi announced cheerfully as she entered the room, wearing the same clothes as when she had gone in, though they bore wet patches where she had attempted to spot-clean them. She was scrubbing at her hair and face with the square of linen that passed for a towel in this world. Blue eyes peeped out over the white fabric, blinking in confusion at the intense looks the boys were giving her.

"Um… did I miss something?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"What do you mean, you know how to escape?" Twilight King Gorm thundered, his fingers clenching on the arms of his throne.

This time, this meeting, the three humans had met with the King in his throne room. A crowd of what Sora could only assume to be Twili courtiers were in attendance as well. The throne room was… unique, to say the least. A vast expanse of polished brown marble stretched in all directions, except for a broad green marble stripe running from the doors to the dais. Red pillars rose up near the walls to help support the ceiling, which seemed to be all but half a mile tall. From these pillars hung oval-shaped globes that shone with green light—the room's only source of illumination. A few pillars also anchored yards upon yards of sheer white fabric that formed a canopy above the dais. The backmost sheet of cloth was partially obscured on its path to the floor by an immense hemisphere of grey stone behind the dais. This hemisphere was carved with swirling designs and an eye in the center, glaring endlessly at those who came to speak to the king.

The king himself was seated atop a rather modest-sized green stone throne in the dais's center. Lined up at the back edge of the dais, between the throne and the carved eye, stood four children, one of which was Zant. The throne was flanked by two short pedestals, upon which tongues of green fire flared. Beneath the throne's feet was spread a square of red fabric embroidered with gold. The dais was raised above the floor around Riku's head-height, accessible by one main staircase in the front center, two smaller flights to either side of the main one, and two even smaller ones on the far left and far right.

It all just seemed like overkill.

The courtiers seemed all but lost amidst the great field of marble. The green lights gave an unhealthy pallor to the three humans in attendance.

"I mean exactly what I said," Riku declared, his face and posture not giving an inch in the face of the King's incredulity. His voice, normally strong and bold, rang thinly, quickly fading away in the vast space. "I can open a portal that can transport us to the Realm of Light."

"Are you trying to tell me that you can save our people?" Gorm's voice was alive with desperate hope.

"No!" came Riku's immediate denial. "First of all, you can't live outside this Realm anymore anyway, can you? Second of all, I'm personally not strong enough to open a portal big enough and keep it going long enough for this entire city to get through in time. And even if I could, I would almost certainly end up screwing up the destination. As a matter of fact, I didn't even want to tell you about any of this, but _Sora_," he glared at his friend, "told me it would be wrong to just leave without at least telling you about it."

"Even if we can't take all of you," Sora added, "we might still be able to take a few—if you want to save your kids or something. This punishment isn't theirs anyway."

"Or if you wanted to send someone with us to bargain with the Light Dwellers for your release," Kairi added as well.

"This is absurd!" one of the courtiers called out, sounding outraged. "Are we to believe that in the space of a single afternoon, three Light Dwellers that have not even seen two decades of life let alone a century can accomplish what we have been attempting since the day of our banishment?"

"We cannot trust them," another agreed. "Light Dwellers imposed this purgatory upon us—why would they change their minds and free us now?"

"It must be a trap," Zant chimed in, his lip curling as he glared at his second cousin. "They intend to wipe us out entirely this time!"

"We aren't Light Dwellers," Riku growled. "We're Islanders. And besides, if we wanted to wipe all of you out, we'd just use Dark Aura and Ars Arcanum right here. We wouldn't just take a few of you through the portal, either."

"I don't think you're helping our cause," Sora muttered, edging closer to his friends at the positively murderous glare Zant was now giving them.

"You should be dead where you stand for threatening me! I—!"

"You aren't king yet, Zant," one of the other teens behind the throne spoke up. This one was a young girl the same age as Zant with long red hair and an intricate filigree of markings on her forehead. Riku couldn't tell if they were birthmarks like his (they weren't glowing) or some kind of Twili henna.

"Be silent, both of you," Gorm commanded. Zant subsided, visibly fuming. "Perhaps a demonstration might be in order…?"

"Think you can do it, Riku?" Sora glanced at his silver-haired friend.

"I've got to if we want to get out of here anyway," Riku shrugged, covering his nervousness with nonchalance. He glanced down at his right hand, hoping it wouldn't start glowing again. He had switched his white arm-warmer from his left arm to his right one and pulled the edge down over the back of his hand, but it was only a makeshift covering. It wouldn't hide anything, not in this dim place.

So, choking down his own fear and hoping it would be enough, the tall youth took a deep breath and lifted his right hand. Turquoise eyes slid shut, his face smoothing over as he concentrated. His fingers slowly curled out, flattening his hand as if against a glass wall.

A pinpoint of blackness appeared a few feet away from his hand. Riku's eyes opened, eyebrows pulled into a frown when he saw the size of the portal. His teeth clenched and his expression grew fierce as he searched within him for his power. His mental probe felt nothing as he poked around the edge of what had once been a veritable ocean of dark power in his mind. He delved deeper, eyes squeezing shut again. Where was it?

Everything within him was a gray shade akin to the hides of the dolphins that played around his island home. Every time he had reached for his power before, he had been met with a fluctuating, swirling sea of darkness beneath a burning-white sky too high and far for him to reach easily, while the sea had always been right there in front of him. But now both sea and sky were gone, leaving his heart a blank expanse of grayness that glistened as if wet.

"_You have both light and dark in you,"_ Zant had said. But where _was_ it? There was nothing in here, not even the light that had purportedly flooded his heart and driven out Xehanort's Heartless. Just this dim, watery shade. His power… had it gone entirely…?

_No!_ He would not allow that to happen! He wouldn't be powerless. He wouldn't be a burden on the others. Even beyond screwing up, even beyond falling into darkness once more, even beyond being related to a manipulative king and spiteful cousin, he did not want that. He would _not_ drag them down.

A new kind of fear filled him at the thought—desperation. His mental hand snatched out at the grayness, demanding that it yield its power to him. He would squeeze its power from it like juice from a grape if he had to.

To his surprise, power flowed readily down his arm and out through his palm, tingling in his fingertips. It wasn't dark, and it wasn't light. It was both together. It was gray.

It was twilight.

The boy's eyes snapped open just in time to see the tiny portal expand like an inflated balloon, swelling until it was as tall as Riku himself. It wasn't the purple-streaked blackness he had expected, though. This portal was black, yes, but with hard, defined edges like something solid. It was streaked not with purple, but with glowing green lines in geometric shapes and symbols that extended to infinity.

As he stood inspecting his new portal, Riku was suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion. His knees buckled, nearly sending him sprawling on his face. Sora leaped forward and put a hand on his chest, the other pulling his friend's arm over his shoulder. Just like the fight with Xemnas, Riku thought with bitter amusement. He couldn't do anything strenuous without collapsing, could he?

"Riku!" Kairi exclaimed, seeing her friend nearly fall.

"Are you okay?" the Hero of Light questioned, full of concern. Riku grimaced at their sympathy.

"I'm fine. Just tired, that's all."

"Goddesses above…" King Gorm whispered, eyes riveted on the portal. His voice was clearly audible over the blanket of shocked speechlessness that had befallen every Twili in the room.

"This should… lead us to the Realm of Light," Riku told them. "So do you or do you not want to send someone along with us?"

"…I…" the King gathered himself, remembering his duty. "How many do you think you can take?"

"Not many," Riku gathered himself as well, trying to think. "Along with Sora and Kairi and me… I'd say about… ten? Something like that…"

"Uh-oh," Sora muttered. "When Riku's indecisive it's never a good thing…"

"Shut up," he muttered back. Then, louder, "I can't hold it for much longer, so you'll have to decide quickly."

"Let it go. I have a proposal for you," Gorm leaned forward, his voice commanding.

"What proposal?" Riku demanded, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead, though his long bangs hid it. He didn't let go of the portal.

"This power of yours intrigues me," Gorm admitted. "Your scent is that of a Twili, though you command a power none of us can wield. Stay here for the night, rest and regain your strength, and allow us to study this power of yours. Then, in the morning, not only will we gladly see you off—I will send a small contingent of our soldiers to aid you in your quest to help your friend, as well as to bargain with the Light Dwellers."

"Sora…?" Riku glanced to the side, unable to move his head without getting an eyeful of brown hair-spike. His breath was starting to become labored. It was obvious that even if they refused the proposal, no Twili would be coming with them unless the courtiers all sprinted for the portal at once.

"Sounds good to me. How about you?"

"I think it's a great idea," Kairi agreed.

"We accept!" Riku all but gasped out the words, severing the flow of his power to the portal. The tunnel blinked out of existence, taking with it the last of the boy's strength. He sagged, only held up by Sora, who stumbled at the sudden increase in weight. Kairi hovered beside them anxiously, painfully aware that she only came up to Riku's chest. She wouldn't be any help holding him up. After a few seconds, Riku's head lifted enough for him to glare at Sora.

"Are we just going to stand in the damn throne room all day, or would you mind finding somewhere for me to pass out in peace?"

"Heheheh…" Sora laughed nervously.

"You may return to your room to rest," Gorm told them. "But remember our agreement. In a few hours, we will begin our… study."

At his words, a faint spot of light appeared on Riku's arm-warmer where it covered the back of his right hand.


	15. 14: Cold Blooded

**Kitty: …So. It's been a while. Not much to say here. **

**Axel: YearOfTheKitty does not own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda.**

**Kitty: Enjoy. (How's this for lukewarm?)**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XIV**

**Cold-Blooded**

"_Far from home, on a road unknown_

_Where the vultures circle on winds that blow,_

_From northern skies that haunt these waking moments,_

_In shadows cast by the mountain range,_

_On calloused soles, we find our way._

_Through desperate eyes, we long for the horizon_

_While this sun is rising."_

—_Rise Against, 'Long-Forgotten Sons'_

The sun was a hole in the blue eggshell of the cloudless sky, a hole through which blue-white fire flared with an almost audible roar. Shadows huddled at the feet of cacti and tumbled rocks, hiding from the sun's wrath. The very air shivered with dread at the solar deity's anger. The sand thought to escape notice if it stayed as still as possible, a sentiment echoed by any animals foolish enough to thrive in such a place. As far as the eye could see, the land lay limp, lifeless, barren and beaten into submission.

It was, Riku thought, the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. His opinion, though, might have been influenced slightly by the fact that he'd just spent twenty-four consecutive hours in a dimly-lit, cold castle where nothing was the right color and what little light there was made you look like a walking corpse—not to mention the architect's clear desire to overcompensate for something. And at least five of those hours had been spent being… 'studied'…

"Thank God!" Riku fell flat on his face in the sand, not quite able to bring himself to care about the burns he was sure to get from the scorching-hot earth. His impact threw up an extremely satisfying cloud of dust.

"Aw, come on, Riku," Sora said, stepping from the portal behind him. "It couldn't have been that bad!"

"You were sent out of the room, how would you know?" Riku glared over his shoulder, not moving. Maybe a good case of heat stroke would erase the last five hours from his memory. (Or rather, the last five hours he'd spent awake—there were a few hours interim between the… 'study'… and his arrival in the desert.) Not to mention how wiped-out he was from making the portal…

"At least move out of the way so we can get out of the portal," Kairi spoke up from behind them. Riku obligingly rolled over onto his back, squinting his eyes shut against the glare of the celestial body that held the desert in thrall. Sora rolled his eyes and moved to stand by him, leaving the way clear for Kairi to lead a group of ten Twili soldiers into the wasteland.

The soldiers looked odd to Riku, who had assumed the robes of the courtiers, king, and… Zant… to be the norm for their race. This was apparently not so, as the soldiers who now stepped out onto the sand were certainly not wearing robes. Instead, they were clad in what the boy later learned to be called an 'exoskeleton', though at the time all he knew was that it was a tight-fitting, one-piece article that covered the soldiers from wrist to ankle. Extending from the neck was a kind of skintight hood that covered their scalps. Each one was obviously just as bald as… Zant. Perhaps the Twili boy wanted to become a soldier…?

"Ah…" Riku let the portal go with a sigh of relief. The last link to that awful, badly-lit place would soon be gone, and he'd never have to think about his uncle or… cousin… ever again…

Just as the black circle vanished from existence, something small and dark shot out of it. A cloud of sand was thrown up, obscuring the object's identity. Sora leaped between it and the still-prostrate Riku, Keyblade drawn, mind whirling with images of Heartless and Nobodies. The sand settled back down meekly in the face of the sun's displeasure, and the object stirred, rising up until it was taller than Sora.

"Oh _God_…" Riku groaned like he'd been stabbed. "Anyone but _you_…!"

"That's a fine welcome, cousin," Zant sniffed haughtily.

"Who invited _you_?" Sora demanded, lowering his blade but not 'sheathing' it.

"I invited myself. The tests I ran on my dear cousin last night indicated a few seconds' delay between the severing of power and the portal's disappearance while the already-released power expends itself. It is fortunate for me that this proved true," Zant glanced behind him where the portal had once been, looking vaguely uneasy.

"But why did you follow us?" Kairi wanted to know.

"And if the word 'family' passes your lips, I'm _going_ to use Dark Maelstrom to obliterate you from the face of this world—once I can stand up," Riku added. "You've made it abundantly clear that you abhor the very air I breathe."

"I am glad you understand that much," Zant snapped. "I followed you because I do not approve of His Majesty's sending our soldiers on this worthless venture. This way I can be sure no traps of yours lie in wait."

"We've been through this; if there was a trap, why would we only lead _ten_ people into it?" Riku rolled his eyes. "Besides, if there was a trap, all following us would do would doom you to it, too."

"Not once I master these Twilight Portals of yours," Zant denied smugly. "After our quality bonding time last night, I believe that I am quite capable of creating one myself… given practice."

"What exactly did you do to him last night?" Kairi asked, glancing between Zant's haughty superiority and Riku's worn-out trauma.

"Don't ask. Ever," Riku began to struggle upright, managing to flip over and rise to his hands and knees before his trembling legs halted his upward progress. Sora, seeing his friend's trouble, swooped down to haul him to his feet, in a posture that was quickly becoming usual for Riku's collapses (to the tall boy's mortal shame): Riku's arm slung over Sora's shoulder and Sora's free hand hooked in his belt.

In this way, the two boys—looking remarkably like two entrants at a three-legged race straggling across the finish line in last place to a round of sympathetic applause—led the slow trek across the desert. Kairi and Zant walked just behind the two leaders, and the ten Twili soldiers walked (marching was impossible on the malicious sands, which were determined not to break the cycle of violence begun by the sun) in a loose double column behind them.

The Twili, Riku noted, looking over his shoulder, glowed. Not in the same way his marks did, but in the way ten people with skin bleached as white as the driven snow did in cruel, bright daylight. He wondered if white skin was a byproduct of being a soldier—perhaps Twili exposed to the elements turned white in the same way humans turned brown?—or if you could only become a soldier if you had white skin to begin with. If that was so, Zant hadn't a hope. His skin was as blue as the lips of a cadaver.

Regardless of the reader's pace through the above paragraph, these observations flew through Riku's head in a matter of seconds before his shoe slipped on the side of a sand dune and he gave up thinking. The trek was dry, difficult, and deadly dull. All alliteration aside, the boy began to believe that by the time they were beyond the desert, his flesh would have been burned off his very bones. Sora, dressed all in black, and Kairi, wearing a sleeveless top and short skirt, were in similar straits. Zant, who had apparently managed to scrounge an exoskeleton in teen sizes, and the other Twili did not seem bothered in the least.

Belatedly, Riku realized that they had brought no food or water with them.

At that precise, symbolic moment, his sneaker struck something hard, unearthing it from the sand.

It was a skeleton.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The sun was a cutout circle of white paper in the sky, stark against the damp blue eggshell of the sky. Puffy white clouds drifted hither and yon, borne on the cool, gentle winds that held a hint of moisture in their depths—though not enough to be called humid. Grass as thick and luxuriant as plush carpeting reached for their benevolent god on his cloudy throne, nothing but clear, still air between them and him. Wildflowers bowed slowly, repeatedly, in reverence, leaves curling in joy as they drank in the life-giving rays.

It was, Roxas thought, the ugliest place he'd ever seen.

_Ugh,_ he groaned internally, violently throwing himself down in the lush grass. _Where is the pavement? The yellow buildings? The trams and the trains and the posters and the skateboards and the school and the stifling humidity and the smell of exhaust…?_

_Where is home?_

"What's wrong with you?" Link asked, walking up beside the prone figure of the Hero of Light's Nobody.

"I," Roxas pronounced slowly and carefully, words slightly muffled by his mouthful of grass and earth, "am sick of this field." Returning to his normal inflection, he added, "Seriously, what possessed your ancestors to settle here?"

"Why not? I think it's pretty," Link replied without much conviction.

"Don't kid yourself. You're homesick for that forest you told me about," Roxas lifted his head a bit, finding it easier to breath with his nose and mouth free of dirt.

"And you're homesick for that town you told me about," Link countered. A few days of forced interaction had somewhat softened the tensions between the two blue-eyed blonds, but their conversations were still mostly characterized by (not-so-veiled) barbs and curt sentences. They were stuck together, however, while Axel taught Sheik the fine art of portal-opening.

The red-eyed youth had mastered summoning lesser Nobodies to Roxas's satisfaction some days previously. Opening dark portals, though, was not an art he could learn from Roxas, due to the Key of Destiny's… technical difficulties in that area. Zelda had theorized that the many criss-crossing tunnels of magic energy that the teleportation songs employed were disrupting his own portals, and that Axel was less affected because he had more experience. Thusly, the task of educating Sheik fell to Axel—who, Roxas was enraged to learn, was actually a competent teacher when he wasn't teaching Roxas. Since the three teens and one man(-child) usually spent every waking moment in each other's company, this left Link and Roxas with no one to talk to except each other while their counterparts were off teleporting from one end of Hyrule Field to the other and back again.

To Roxas's frustration, Axel had done nothing at all ever since the kiss by the fountain. Nothing, that is, in the same vein as the Temple Thing (as it had come to be known in the recesses of Roxas's subconscious). He had been the annoying ass he always was and not a word he'd said could have been taken as flirting on any level. It was as if someone had replaced the real Axel with an actor that had only been able to study him before his coming to Hyrule.

_Or,_ Roxas thought morosely, _as if I drove him off somehow._ It was a sad commentary on his life that either option was entirely viable. He wasn't even sure which to hope for at this point. But how could he have driven Axel off anyway? Unless it was his transparent attempt to push Axel away, that is, by bringing up how badly he'd hurt the man's feelings in the past. But he'd laughed that off, hadn't he? Perhaps the Flurry of Dancing Flames had admitted defeat in the face of Roxas's lukewarm-ness. Or perhaps he'd changed his mind and decided Roxas wasn't worth it after all…

_I can see why girls might turn gay,_ he thought as he thumped his forehead against the ground to banish the ghost of Axel's breath on his cheeks that was carried on the slight breeze. _This is damn_ confusing…

And he didn't even know how he felt about it. It was a relief to have his best friend back, of course—the one he had no fear around because their friendship had been forged in a bond of flame: unbreakable and eternal. It was reassuring, familiar, safe. Each stayed within the bonds of best friends—which in their case barred virtually nothing besides kissing and sex, actually. That was how comfortable they were around each other. Still, it was enough.

On the other hand, every now and then, when Roxas caught Axel's eyes in a glance as they both laughed over something the other had said… he could feel his lips again, hot and minty, or his arms around him, strong and safe in an entirely different way… And at those moments he would have to stop himself from reaching out to the skinny redhead and crushing himself against his chest.

_Against his chest… lips locked together… hands slowly wandering lower and lower… until…_

"Why are you beating your head against the ground?" Link's voice broke into the repetitive sound of Roxas's forehead impacting the carpet of plants with bruising force, flattening the stalks and ruthlessly grinding them into the dirt.

"Banishing demons," he said shortly, not ceasing in his self-abuse. No more explanation was offered, and Link didn't pry. He really didn't want to know. The wind picked up a little, bearing the faint scent of horses from Lon Lon Ranch. The sea of grass fluttered like a thousand beating wings, as if they would take flight at any second and rush through the sky to meet the sun they worshipped.

"We're back!" the strident voice rang out over the vision of peace almost before the black stain on the perfect view spread like midair fungus, revealing a grinning twig of a man with brushfire hair.

"God help us," Roxas pronounced, propping himself up on his elbows and lifting his face finally from the ground. Wintergreen eyes blinked twice, teardrop tattoos sliding downward as the cheeks beneath them fell.

"Eh? Who're you?"

"You know very well it's me, Axel. Cut the crap," Roxas rolled onto his back. That cloud, he noted, looked a bit like a dagger dripping blood… Maybe it was a sign…

"No, no, no," Axel denied seriously, shaking his head and propping his hands on his skinny hips. "Roxas has yellow hair and peach skin. You're kind of dirt-colored."

"It's my battle camouflage."

"Is nobody going to ask about my lesson?" Sheik, until that moment standing unobtrusively behind Axel, broke in with a raised eyebrow.

"How'd it go?" Link asked, grinning widely at his Nobody for no reason he could call to mind. Sheik smiled back unconsciously.

"Great!" Axel grinned back, clapping a gloved hand onto his temporary pupil's slender shoulder. "The ninja here managed to land us right on top of that big volcano over there! Of course, he was aiming for the village beneath it, but whatever. At least we weren't attacked by any scantily-clad desert... ahem, _mountain_ women out for our blood the second we landed. That's always a plus."

"I hate both of you," Roxas commented mildly. "Just you wait till it's my turn to teach you Thunder, Fire, Blizzard, Gravity, Magnet, and Stop. You'll wish you'd made less fun of me _then_."

"I regret it already," Sheik assured him with an exaggerated sigh. "But the torture will be worth it, I am sure, when we finally discover the Mirror Triforce bearers."

"You'll have to get in line," Roxas said. "Zelda's all but offering her soul as a reward for whoever kills one of them."

"That seems a little like overkill," Axel remarked. "Are these Mirror-people really that dangerous?"

"Of course!" Link turned away from his absent grinning to stare at Axel, aghast. "How dangerous do _you_ think three warriors with the power of the Godesses are?"

"But what makes you think they're going to try and destroy your kingdom anyway?" Axel waved a hand.

"How to put this…?" Link pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, the Goddesses made wolves and elk, right? The wolves kill the elk to live. It's not _bad_—well, maybe for the elk—it's just what they Mirror Triforce is the wolf and we're the elk."

"What the Hero is attempting to say," Sheik broke in. "Is that we cannot coexist with them. And that is the end of it." Then, turning back to Axel, "Shall we continue, then?"

"Sure!" Axel replied cheerfully. "As long as you aim for that huge-ass lake over there. That way we're sure not to land in it."

"I will do so," Sheik obliged. One tan hand with bandaged fingers rose, setting awhirl a kaleidoscope of black and violet. The two Nobodies disappeared into the vortex, which disappeared, leaving Link and Roxas alone again.

_And so the cycle continues,_ Roxas groaned internally, thumping his forehead into the dirt once more. They teleported off, he and Link insulted each other for a while, they came back, everyone chatted for a while—Axel refusing to flirt while Link and Sheik seemed on the verge—and then they teleported off again. Wash, rinse, repeat. All day for the past three (or four) days.

"I am _so_ bored," he whined.

"What do you want me to do about it?" Link seated himself on a nearby rock, bringing out the Master Sword (which he had kept since the negotiations with Ganondorf) in one hand and a rag in the other. He proceeded to polish the already-shining blade absently, watching the distorted reflections of clouds drift past overhead.

"What do you people do for fun around here?" Roxas asked.

"You're asking me?" Link glanced up scornfully. "I work. That's all I do. I'm the Hero of Goddesses-damned _Time_, Roxas. _My_ fun consists of putting down roaming bands of Lizalfos in the desert, or settling disputes over fishing rights, or finding kids' lost pets, _okay_?"

"So… you're like the Errand-Boy of Time," Roxas smirked.

"I know you're facedown in the dirt, but I'll have you know that I'm holding the Master Sword," Link informed him. "If touching the handle throws you across a room, I wonder what stabbing you with the blade will do. Or maybe I'll hit you with the boomerang again…"

"Try it," Roxas sat up to aim a double-barreled glare at the green-clad teen.

"Or trample you with Epona…" Link continued unheedingly. "Or sic Anju's cuccos on you…"

"Cuccos?"

"A fate worse than death."

"Yeah, I'm absolutely _terrifi_—wait," Roxas's eyes lit up in realization. "That's it!"

"You're going to play with cuccos? Well, don't let me stop you…" Link smirked.

"No, I'm stealing your horse," Roxas corrected, pulling his flute from his belt.

"Huh?" Link's attention fully shifted from the sword in his hands to the melody now pouring from Roxas's breath as it was channeled through the perforated metal tube. Roxas frowned as he played. He'd only heard this song a few times before… what seemed like ages ago. Then, the notes had tumbled from the lips and throat of a slim red-haired Hylian girl in a grove of pine trees.

This time, the song had the same effect. There was a thunder of hooves, and Epona appeared some distance away, bearing down at full speed. Roxas stopped playing. Despite his knowledge of what would come next, he still couldn't suppress a flinch as the large horse planted her hooves mere inches away, coming to the instant halt that only she could achieve. The mare's head dropped halfway before her nostrils flared, and she reared back, retreating several steps and neighing loudly, surprised to find a _different_ blond swordsman with a flute where her master usually was.

"She doesn't let just anyone ride her, you know," Link told him smugly. "And that's really rude of you, taking my horse without asking first. Not to mention she ran all the way here for nothing now."

"I doubt she was doing anything too incredibly important," Roxas snorted, reaching up. Epona snuffled at his proffered fingers, nipping them gently before allowing him to stroke her muzzle.

"And you are?" Link raised one eyebrow.

"Depends," came Roxas's grunt. He had progressed to petting the mare's neck and mane, and had worked his way around to standing at her side. As Link watched, he carefully brought one foot up and rested it gingerly in the stirrup. Epona's head swung around to regard him with wide, liquid chocolate eyes, but did nothing to stop him. Encouraged, the blue-eyed Nobody shifted his weight fully onto that foot. Still nothing. Now much more boldly, he swung his left leg over the mare's broad back, settling into the saddle and clutching the saddle horn, prepared for her to buck him right back off.

Surprisingly, Epona didn't. Her head swung around to face forward once more, and she tossed her mane almost impatiently, as if asking what the holdup was. Roxas shot Link a triumphant grin.

"Guess she's a better judge of character than that sword of yours, huh?"

"She's only not stopping you because I'm not," Link told him, keeping his uncertainty out of his voice and expression. "Where are you planning on taking her, anyway?"

"The Ranch," Roxas answered, taking up the reins. With no signal from her rider, Epona wheeled around in the direction of the indicated building, stamping her front feet now and snorting as she began to walk. "There's someone I need to talk to there!" he called back over his shoulder. Then, to the horse, "Come on, girl, is that as fast as you can go?"

And that was when Roxas learned that Epona's full-gallop-to-full-stop trick could be done in reverse with equal proficiency.

And that it was a lot harder to stay on a galloping horse than it looked in the movies.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Three days. Three days they had spent trekking through the desert. Three days living off of roasted horned lizard. Three days casting Blizzaga at each other intermittently—both for relief from the heat and to quench their thirst. Three days of listening to Riku and Zant constantly at each other's throats, of blistering sunburn, of sore feet and freezing nights and pouring sweat, and _way_ too many other things for Sora to honestly believe it had only been three days.

After Riku's stumble over the skeleton, the group had been much more wary. After all, as Zant cheerfully pointed out, _something_ had to have made those teeth marks in the bones. But after a while of uneventful walking, they had relaxed again. There didn't seem to be anything alive in this desert at all besides them, the few lizards they came across, and the intermittent vulture flying by to check if they were dead yet.

And as if they didn't have enough problems to deal with, the Twili appeared to be disappearing.

It was Riku who first noticed. An amusing twist on his and Zant's mutual hatred was that in order to argue nonstop, they had to spend the majority of their time with each other. It was nearing the end of the fourth day that he noticed. In this particular instance, the cousins were at odds over whether blue skin or peach skin sunburned faster.

"…not a question of pigment!" Riku was snarling. "You turned blue _as a direct result_ of no sunlight! Therefore, you're less able to handle it!"

"Idiot, _I_ was born with blue skin, so even if that's true for the other Twili, it's not true for me," Zant shot back. "And pigment is what _makes_ you sunburn, so saying it's not a question of pigment is like saying water has nothing to do with a lake."

"UV rays make you sunburn, not pigment! Pigment makes you tan!"

"You tan if you have more pigment, and if you have less you burn!"

"Oh, shut _UP_!" Kairi rounded on the two of them. Sora watched in amusement as both boys (each easily two feet taller than her) cowered away from the redhead's wrath. The pink-clad girl reached out and seized their wrists, yanking them out to hold their hands beside each other. Zant's usually-azure skin had darkened to a bruised purple color—the Twili equivalent of a sunburn. Riku's was flaming red.

"They each burn the same," the Princess of Heart pronounced, throwing their hands down in disgust. "There, happy?" Kairi turned and marched back to Sora's side, where the two had been talking (and valiantly ignoring the shouting match occurring behind them).

"Wait a minute…" Riku murmured, grabbing Zant's wrist again.

"Hey, let go!" the Twili youth protested, jerking but unable to break his cousin's grip. "What are you doing?"

"I saw something," Riku said shortly, pulling the other's hand up so it was silhouetted against the sun. It became a black paper cutout. He moved it back down.

"There! See? Your fingers are translucent," Riku pointed out. "I can see the shape of that cactus when I hold them in front of it."

"Goddesses…" one of the Twili soldiers, who had been listening in and come up behind them to see what the noise was about, whispered. Zant's face went slack, his skin turning a chalky powder blue.

"What's wrong?" Sora turned back. By now everyone had stopped walking and clustered around the Twili youths, worried and curious.

"I'm… disappearing," Zant muttered. Then, louder, "Everyone! Check your own hands!" There was a flurry of motion as all ten Twili lifted their own appendages, turning to place them in front of cacti or each other. Riku held his breath, letting it out a moment later when the startled cries confirmed that Zant was not alone. All the Twili were disappearing.

"We're not…" Kairi mumbled, holding her own hands up. They were as solid and opaque as they had always been.

"The Twili can't live in the Realm of Light," Riku recalled. "Maybe it's not a social thing… maybe they physically _can't_."

"But they aren't dying, they're disappearing," Sora pointed out.

"We were banished," the captain of the Twili soldiers—a nice woman named Fren, who Sora thought looked odd bald—put in. "Perhaps we are being sent back."

"That would make sense," Sora nodded, agreeing.

"I hope so," Zant said fervently. "I _refuse_ to die for you Light Dwellers."

"I'm a quarter Twili," Riku corrected absently, thinking. If Twili who somehow escaped banishment were gradually sent back, it meant that all those early ones who had tried to escape by teleportation song had either died, or ended up somewhere the magic didn't reach. Like another world… like Destiny Islands. Yet more proof that he was, indeed, descended from this world's inhabitants—albeit exiled ones.

"I guess there's nothing we can do but keep going," Sora finally said. The group fell back into its usual formation (double columns, each seven people long) and moved out once more.

They had only been walking a few more hours, and the sun had just come to rest on the broad stroke of the horizon when it happened.

The group began to draw abreast of a large rock formation that Riku was tempted to tell Zant was Twili-shaped if it didn't mean insulting Fren as well—who he liked. Wind, or perhaps water, appeared to have worn one piece of a larger mesa away from its original formation, creating a lumpy mass on one side and a kind of pillar on the other. The pillar was topped by a knob that was wider than the rest of it.

It was between the pillar and the mesa that Sora was now leading them. Nobody, not even the soldiers, considered the tactical soundness of this decision—not here, smack in the heart of Middle of Nowhere, Gerudo Desert. There was nobody for miles. Besides which, it appeared to be the only _shade_ within miles as well. Despite the sun's imminent set, it was still hellishly hot, the sand releasing its absorbed heat back into the sky.

So it was that all fourteen of them trooped unsuspectingly into the trench between mesa and what had looked like a pillar when seen head-on, but was actually a kind of rock wall the same width as the mesa itself. Riku looked back at the 'knob' atop the wall as they entered the shade, wondering what trick of the weather had created a rough sphere on the edge of a wall.

He would kick himself for that moment later.

As the tall young man watched, a moving shape appeared around the side of the knob. A lizard, he thought.

He'd kick himself for that thought as well.

Under uncomprehending turquoise eyes, the shape attached itself to the side of the knob, which wobbled beneath the weight. A few seconds was all it took before the knob—not a knob, Riku knew now, but a boulder—came loose from the top and plummeted at least ten yards to the ground, where it struck with a tremendous _ka-THUMP_!

The sound was echoed, and Riku whipped around to face forward. A boulder from the top of the mesa had fallen, blocking that end of the trench as well. The columns halted as everyone else imitated Riku's move in reverse, turning to look behind them and staring speechlessly. They were trapped.

"Look out!" Kairi shouted, pointing upwards. Riku's head snapped up. The moving shape he'd seen by the boulder behind them had multiplied itself, so now the mesa and wall top were bristling with them. The black shapes poured themselves down the rocky sides. In an instant, the group—which had drawn itself into a defensive circle, though not as tightly as Fren would have liked due to their numbers—was surrounded by seven-foot-tall lizards.

Riku kicked himself twice as he summoned Road to Dawn. To either side of him, Sora was pulling out the Kingdom Key, while Kairi called up True Heart. Zant was shunted to the center of their circle as the only one of them without a weapon, something that appeared to infuriate him to no end.

The lizards were like nothing Riku had ever seen. He was used to Donald, Goofy, and King Mickey, who were all enlarged, bipedal versions of animals themselves (except Donald, who was both enlarged and in possession of arms, as his counterparts were bipedal to begin with, though they lacked fingers), but these lizards were something else.

They called to each other in high, yipping noises, nothing like what Riku would have thought a talking lizard to sound like. They were armed with slim swords and round bucklers, metal breastplates covering their thin chests. Their skin was green and pebbled, except for their undersides, where it was thin and gray. Long tails waved behind them, as lethal as any whip, and their curved claws could have gutted them as easily as the swords they gripped. The yipping they made revealed full mouths of serrated shark's teeth.

"Lizalfos!" Zant said from behind Riku. Either he was naming the creatures, or swearing. Each option was as likely as the other, considering it came from Zant. Its resemblance to the word 'lizard', however, made the boy think it was the name of their opponents.

The boy's half-hidden eyes flicked between the teeth, claws, tails, and swords rapidly, despairingly. They were outmatched, outmaneuvered, and outnumbered. The back of his right hand began to glow, unhindered by the arm-warmer, which Riku had stuffed into his pocket by the end of the very first day. This would be the fight of their lives—or very possibly the end of them.

Sora, meanwhile, was having very different thoughts. They had been ambushed. That alone showed that these were no dumb beasts, not to mention the items they carried and the obvious spoken language. They weren't attacking yet. Instead, they appeared to be whipping themselves into a frenzy, yipping and leaping around with increasing vigor. They had to be stopped before one of them finally attacked—which Sora was sure would lead to a mobbing in no time.

"Hey!" he called out, stepping forward. He could feel the incredulous stares of his companions on his back as he addressed the hordes. "Please, calm down! We don't want to fight you; we just want to get through the desert!"

"Sora…" Riku warned. The back of the Hero of Light's hand began to glow, his gloves having been removed at the same time as Riku's arm-warmer. It, like Riku's, was hardly distinguishable from the glints of light off the Lizalfos' bucklers in the dying light.

One of the Lizalfos, spurred by the boy's shouts, darted forward, warbling discordantly. Its sword came down in an overhead arc, right at Kairi—the one it had accurately judged to be the smallest and weakest. Kairi brought up True Heart, but not quickly enough.

_CLANG!_

The Lizalfos leaped back, yipping in disappointment. Sora withdrew the Kingdom Key from where he had thrust it between the reptile's blade and Kairi's head. The girl muttered her thanks, ducking out from under his arms. Unnoticed by any, the back of her right hand began to emit a faint light from the tip of a triangular shape that marred her skin.

The other Lizalfos, seeing the brief scuffle, suddenly rushed forward as one, their swords raised and eyes on fire. The sun dipped even lower, threatening to plunge them into darkness. There was no doubt who would win if that happened—humans didn't have night vision.

But Riku didn't notice this, didn't think about it. There was no time.

The fight was on.


	16. 15: A Call To Arms

**Kitty: Hmm… Seems like I gained a lot of new readers all at once. I thank you all for your wonderful reviews! I'm sorry you all had to listen to me whine!**

**Axel: What, don't **_**I**_** get an apology for having to listen to you whine?**

**Kitty: Hell to the no. You're my muse, you don't need an apology. Anyway, here we go, finally remembering poor Naminé. (Whose name I avoid whenever possible because of the stupid rigamarole of 'insertsymbolé. [Sudden thought: Does that accent even **_**show**_** on ffn? If it took out the é, I am going to be **_**so**_** pissed…]) My heart goes out to her.**

**Axel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This kid doesn't own the Legend of Zelda or Kingdom Hearts. Though maybe if I snuck around a bit, I could sell her Naminé… .**

**Kitty: Enjoy!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XV**

**Call to Arms**

"_They fall in line, one at a time_

_Ready to play."_

—_Breaking Benjamin, 'Blow Me Away'_

Roxas was learning new things at an unsettling pace. Apparently, not only did his borrowed steed posses a wicked streak and the uncanny ability to go from zero to sixty in less than a single second, and not only was it much more difficult to stay in the saddle than he'd anticipated, _but_ Epona could also read his mind, discover their exact destination, and then choose the fastest course there, all the while ignoring the shouting, kicking, yanking human on top of her. (Roxas distantly wondered if he'd discovered the secret to Link's success as an errand-boy.)

Unfortunately for Roxas, in this case, Epona decided—quite without consultation of her rider—that the fastest course to Lon Lon Ranch was to jump the wall surrounding it, thereby gaining direct access to the heart of the compound. So, her plans still unknown to the parties it involved (besides her, of course), the pretty mare charged with every ounce of speed she could muster directly at the wall. Roxas, meanwhile, seriously considered becoming devoutly religious for a split second before the idea was washed away by his internal gibbering as the horse seemed to pause before launching herself (and him with her) up, up, up, into the air. He clutched her mane (reins forgotten) in a white-knuckled grip and bit his lip hard, making sure his gibbering remained strictly internal.

They reached a peak and plunged down, down, down towards the ground. Roxas dimly wondered if life just loved dropping him off of things. From now on, he was keeping his feet firmly on the ground—no more horses, no more rooftops, no more falling.

Epona's hooves hit the ground hard, her muscles rippling all the way up to her shoulders as they absorbed the shock. She ran forward several yards to keep her balance, as well as to decelerate (as if she needed it, Roxas thought bitterly). When they had come to a complete halt, the red mare tossed her head in a spray of white seafoam, neighing merrily.

That was when Roxas learned that sailing into a walled ranch on the back of somebody else's horse typically resulted in several moments of disbelieving shock before all hell broke loose.

And for some reason, he couldn't seem to let go of Epona's neck. Strange.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It had been at least a week now, maybe more. Naminé had settled in to life at the ranch if not easily then at least readily. She helped Malon with what chores she could (feeding the horses, cucoos and cats, collecting the cuccoos' eggs, grooming the horses, sweeping out the barn, etc) to earn her keep. It was a small ranch, though, and even with what little help Naminé gave, there was not much work for the two girls and one ranch-hand to do. Malon spent most of her time out with the horses, playing with them and stroking them and singing all the while. Naminé sometimes joined her (without the singing—she was too shy for that, and she didn't know any songs anyway) but mostly sat on the fence's top slat with her sketchbook on her knees, drawing picture after picture of Malon, the horses, the cucoos, the cats, the ranch, and even Talon.

The sketchbook had come about as a result of boredom coupled with attempted magic. The first day she had been there, Naminé had wandered around, aimless and bored. She wanted to find Roxas—if what the boy in green had said was true and he really was still out there somewhere. She had come back, so why not him? But if he had, why was he stealing? It wasn't like him, and Naminé intended to find out the truth.

She had long watched the other Nobodies warp in and out of rooms, up and down stairs, pretty much everywhere they wanted to go. She had envied that freedom, trapped as she was within their castle. Had envied the power to go where you wanted to be immediately and effortlessly. Well, now she wanted to be where Roxas was. And if she had to learn how to open portals to do that, she would do it.

Her first attempts had done nothing at all. She felt no power stir within her when she called on the darkness. Maybe it was her Somebody—too pure of heart to ever command such taint. But she herself had done dark things, hadn't she? She could do it. And she tried. But try as she would, not a single portal opened, and Naminé was left waving her arm about in the air like an imbecile.

After the fourth or fifth try, something did happen, but not what she had wanted. A small flower of darkness opened, and her face lit up, only to fall again when the flower closed straightaway, though not before dropping two objects down into her outstretched hand. A sketchbook and a box of crayons.

She hadn't been able to open even the smallest of portals since, despite daily attempts.

So she busied herself with small chores and many drawings—the sketchbook never seemed to run out of paper no matter how much she drew, just as the crayons never wore down. Perhaps these were her weapons, like Axel's chakrams or Marluxia's scythe or Larxene's little knives. Frankly, she preferred the sketchbook over any portals or weapons or memory-shuffling powers. They suited her. Perhaps _that_ was why they had come at her call.

In any case, life had been quiet, peaceful, for about a week, maybe more. And then it had happened.

As usual, the blonde Nobody was seated atop the fence, book on lap, adding a scrawl of black as she sketched a horse for the umpteenth time. This one was particularly tricky: a stallion that Malon called a blue roan, with white and black hair intermixed in complex, subtle patterns. They were difficult to reproduce with a crayon and she couldn't erase if she messed up, but she was determined to capture the essence of Sleipnir the Stallion. Malon was keeping the stud still for her by stroking his muzzle and serenading him tunefully. The cucoos clucked. The cats napped in the sun. An average, everyday rural scene.

Faint shouts reached Naminé's ears, barely audible over Malon's tune. The shouts were cut off abruptly, and Naminé thought no more of it. Probably somebody fooling around in the field beyond the ranch.

She was just glancing up to confirm the shading on the horse's shoulder when she saw it. A large, dark shape shot over the top of Lon Lon's wall, arcing towards the ground in a graceful dive. The shape hit the ground running, the familiar _thu-thu-thu-THUMP_, _thu-thu-thu-THUMP_ advertising its identity:

A horse had just dropped from the sky into the middle of Lon Lon Ranch.

Naminé almost dropped her sketchbook as she stared. Malon had abandoned Sleipnir to come up beside the blonde girl and gape as well. The invader-horse trotted several yards towards her as it slowed. Its red flanks expanded and contracted as breath was panted in and out of the black muzzle, one brown eye regarding Naminé with evident self-satisfaction. The horse took a few delicate steps sideways, turning its front half to present the flabbergasted girls with whatever it was carrying.

This time, the sketchbook and crayon really did tumble from pale, nerveless fingers to raise twin tiny clouds of dust. White pages flipped noisily in the slight breeze, unheeded by all as Naminé's jaw followed her drawing implements.

Roxas. _Roxas_ was on the back of this clever, demented horse, both arms wrapped around its neck as if it were a life preserver and he in a storm-tossed ocean. His dusting of freckles stood out starkly, so pale was his face, his eyes stuck wide and staring and his breath coming in short, shocked pants. He looked as startled to find himself here as Naminé was.

"You!" the silence was broken by Malon, who vaulted the fence to advance threateningly upon the hapless Nobody. Several horses in the corral, agitated by the sudden surge of violent intention from their beloved caretaker, began to stomp their hooves and throw their heads up and down, snorting. Even the cucoos gathered into a swirling, white-feathered cloud that descended upon the newcomers with aggressive clucks and crows.

"That horse belongs to the Hero of Time!" Malon continued in an angry, strident tone. "Where'd you get it, huh? She don't let nobody but Link ride her! If you stole a good horse like Epona, Goddesses help me…!"

"Here, what's this?" the other ranch-hand who worked there came rushing out of the barn, attracted by the commotion. He was a good, solid fellow despite his tendency to become bewildered, and Malon had confided to Naminé that she liked him far better than their old hand, Ingo. His name was Renel. At this moment, he had been moving bales of hay, and still held the pitchfork in his hand, stray wisps of yellow decorating the prongs as well as his scattering of brown hair and blue overalls.

"This guy stole a horse!" Malon accused, pointing a finger. "You get off her right now, 'fore I get Renel to stick ya like a pig!"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Naminé hurriedly slid off the fence to stand protectively between Roxas and the ranchers. "He's my friend! Please don't hurt him!"

"Your friend, ya say?" Malon lowered her finger slowly, looking a little confused but still mostly suspicious. "What's he doing on the Hero's mare?"

"I don't know," Naminé mumbled. Meanwhile, Roxas, she saw from the corner of her eye, seemed to have unfrozen from his catatonic state. The boy slowly straightened, wincing as he unclenched stiff muscles. He slid down the red mare's side slowly, his legs wobbling when he hit the ground, forcing him to lean on the animal for support.

"Roxas, what are you doing here?" Naminé turned to her friend, torn between joy, confusion, and a little sadness. That he was here meant he was no longer one with Sora—and if being one with Sora felt anything like being one with Kairi, it was a very powerful loss indeed. Despite her protestations, she still remembered the Hero of Time telling her that Roxas was wanted for stealing already… who was to say he hadn't taken this horse as well? Now that she was paying attention, she did remember having seen it when she was rescued from that hole…

"I'm sorry, Naminé," Roxas finally managed, pushing himself to stand up straight and face her. Epona clip-clopped around between the Nobodies and the ranchers, snorting and rolling an eye at the two as she passed. Malon and Renel seemed to get the hint and moved off, though not without a few suspicious—Malon—and bemused—Renel—glances over their shoulders. Epona, her work done, went up to the fence where she began to snuffle at Sleipnir's face, greeting him.

"Why?" Naminé's head dropped to the side.

"I kind of forgot you were here," he admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. Then, in an effort to redeem himself, "But I was really busy, and there was a lot of dangerous stuff going on so it's better you were here anyway; if you were with us you might have gotten hurt since you can't use magic or control lesser Nobodies or warp, and I'd hate it if you got hurt because of me…!"

"Roxas," Naminé giggled slightly, pressing a finger to her lips. Roxas shut up, blushing a little when he realized he'd been babbling.

"I heard that you were… stealing things," the blonde girl said, her gaze unable to meet his. "Is that true? Are you really a wanted criminal now?"

"No!" Roxas paused, grimaced, and corrected himself. "Okay, I used to be—when I first got here. One day I just appeared out of nowhere along with the Hero of Time's—remember him?—his Nobody. We stole from the Castle to try and figure out why we'd appeared and why I had this," he lifted his right hand, removed the glove, and showed the markings to her. The slim girl gasped a little, eyes going round. "As it turns out, it means I've been chosen by one of this world's ancient relics to help balance it by killing three other holders of the same kind of power. There are a lot of details and I kind of had to convince the ruler of this country that I'm the King of the Nobodies, but the short version is that right now we're waiting around to start what could well turn out to be a war."

"Roxas…" Naminé looked up, her face set. "I don't really understand what's going on, but I want to help you. I don't want to be left behind, sitting uselessly and cheering from the sidelines."

"You never did," Roxas shook his head, smiling sadly. "Are your memories switched with _hers_? _She's_ the one who sat at home. You were right out in the thick of things, helping _him_, helping me, helping Riku, helping _her_… You've done more than enough, Naminé."

"No, I haven't," she disagreed.

"I'm not sure how to get this through to you…" Roxas cast about for a moment before grabbing hold of the girl's slim shoulders and gazing earnestly into her face. For a moment, the wild mess of hair seemed browner, the face open and honest—a look far more suited to _him_ than him.

"Naminé, Sora forgave you," the Key of Destiny said. "You don't have anything to prove, nothing to make up for. You don't have to put yourself in danger to help me. I know you don't like to fight… but this won't be a fight. It'll be a _war_, Naminé, and not a single one of the people on the other side will have met Sora. You won't be able to wave your hand and make them all forget why they were fighting. And besides all that… we have to kill them. That's something you shouldn't have to see."

"But I…" Naminé's gaze dropped again, eyes rippling as if someone had dropped a rock into the cool, blue depths. Her fists clenched by her sides, shoulders hunching a little under Roxas's hands. "I can't be helpless again… not like before…"

"You're plenty strong, Naminé," Roxas took his hands away. This time it was he who could not meet her gaze, alight with fresh hope after his compliment. "There's another thing, though… someone you wouldn't want to meet…"

"Who?" Naminé clasped her hands in front of her, thinking. Who didn't she like? DiZ, but he was gone… so was Marluxia, Larxene, Vexen, Zexion, and Lexaeus, too. Who else had she met in her brief two years of life?

"…Axel," Roxas sighed heavily. "He wasn't dead—only pretending like he did before."

"Oh…" Naminé trailed. It was true; she didn't much care for Axel. Despite the fact that he was the one who had given her the chance to run by looking the other way, he had also ruthlessly manipulated her and even come dangerously close to killing her when Marluxia had hid behind her. Even before that he'd always seemed to harbor some kind of underlying dislike for her, as if he resented her for (not) existing.

Or, she thought, looking at the boy before her, maybe he'd resented her for something else…

"Y-you're right. I don't want to see him," she forced a small smile onto her face. "But I'm glad you came to see me, even if…" _Even if I couldn't help. Even if you think I'm useless. Even if you haven't explained anything yet._

_Even if I'm not the one you love._

"I'll come back and get you once the war is over," Roxas promised seriously. His face was set in determination, so much like the once-memory of Sora's, the ghost of a promise that had never been made shadowing his eyes and the line of his mouth. "We can go away together—you, me, and Axel—and find somewhere we can all live in peace. Okay?"

"Okay," Naminé nodded, smiling. The idea of traveling with Axel did not appeal to her, but he _had_ been the only halfway decent one in Castle Oblivion despite his clear view of her as a kind of rival just for (not) existing. Maybe Roxas could mellow him enough that he wouldn't be so bad anymore. He might be all sharp angles and harsh walls now, but Roxas was as persistent and wearing as the ocean. His constant clashes with the redhead would undoubtedly round out those angles and pound the walls into gravel, given enough time. Naminé knew he could do it. And if he didn't… she could live with that if Roxas was at least there to act as a buffer for his occasionally-evil best friend.

"That would be great," she added with a small laugh, happiness bubbling inside her. She had complete faith in Roxas. He would win his war, come back for her, and then they could stay together forever.

_Even if it wasn't how she had wanted._

"I guess, then…" Roxas shifted towards Epona, clearly ready to say goodbye.

"Roxas!" Naminé suddenly gasped, eyes fixed on something beyond the red mare, by the gate to the ranch. Roxas whirled, watching as a familiar song drifted on the breeze and strings of light swirled into a vortex of color and sound. Roxas stepped protectively in front of Naminé, his arms crossed before him, hands flexing in preparation to draw his Keyblades.

A lone, slim figure stepped from the nexus of light. As his vision grew clearer, Roxas blinked and dropped his stance, expression bewildered.

"What are you doing here?"

"I heard there's a war on and came to join the fun," Tetra, the Hylian Gerudo and Princess Zelda's Nobody, smiled fiercely and winked, one hand propped on her hip, the other swinging her spear by her side. "So where's the action, Rox?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Blood. Blood everywhere. It soaked the air itself, giving the Twili warriors a healthy hue, turning Zant an odd shade of purple, and giving the three humans the appearance of blushing. The Lizalfos had become indistinct brown shapes, akin to one mass of writhing scales, flashing metal, and far too many eyes that glowed from behind.

Riku hacked at the mass with Road to Dawn feverishly. He'd been walking all day, so he had already been tired when the attack happened. Now he was fighting twice as hard, covering both Sora and Kairi with both his blade and newly-restored magic. Bursts of Dark Fire (Twilight Fire now, he supposed) flashed from his palm, looking remarkably like true fire in the red-yellow, blood-soaked light of sunset. He only used the fire, though, to aid Kairi, afraid of what effect it might have on Sora now that he was fighting living, breathing creatures again.

The Hero of Light, for his part, appeared to be thinking of the same thing Riku was. He fought as defensively as he could, relying on non-lethal spells like Blizzaga and Stopga, occasionally shouting out to the others "Don't kill them! They're not monsters!" The Twili listened to him to some extent, though it was impossible to avoid wounding them, and sometimes those wounds had to be severe in order for the Twili to avoid being killed themselves.

Kairi was fighting exceptionally well for a new-timer. Riku still had to devote the majority of his time to defending her, though through no fault of the girl's. Experience wasn't something any amount of willpower could generate. And it seemed as if the Lizalfos had decided to concentrate the bulk of their attacks on her, as the smallest and weakest (Zant was debatably the actual weakest, having no weapon, but he was still ringed by ten professional warriors with bladed weapons ready to die for his sake. So he didn't count).

The bloody light faded far too quickly, leeching the healthy colors from the fighters and leaving them all drawn and sickly-looking. The Lizalfos, on the other hand, seemed to morph out of their own shapes and become something diabolical and nightmarish in the dusk. Their yipping cries echoed around the canyon, and Riku entertained the thought that they would never know how many of them there really were just by listening. Then he fired off another round of Twilight Fire at a Lizalfos sneaking up behind Kairi and roundhouse kicked another in the gut as it began to slash at Sora's unprotected head.

The light slipped away entirely, taking their last vestiges of hopes with it. Riku snarled in frustration. Not that he wished for that division within him again, but he couldn't see half as well in the dark now that he was twilight as he had been able to while completely dark. The Twili probably had better vision than any of them, but even they couldn't navigate through it like the monstrous lizards, and Sora and Kairi were all but blind now that the light was gone.

Except… it wasn't. Flashes of light, far too bright to be reflections of starlight or moonlight off metal waved crazily around the canyon. Their movements were erratic and jerky, something like panicked fireflies. Once or twice, a Lizalfos would catch the light full in the face for a moment and stumble backwards, yapping. More often it was the Twili who were blinded.

Riku jumped backwards, landing in a relatively calm spot, and swiped his forearm across his sweating forehead, breathing heavily. He couldn't keep this up. He was nearing collapse from the physical and magical strain, not to mention the mental pressure. He glanced around, noting that he was not the only one pausing to take a breather. The Lizalfos seemed to have drawn back for some reason, oddly still and silent. The only things bouncing off the rocky walls now were the beams of light, though even they had fallen mostly still. They jiggled up and down rapidly but rhythmically, in tempo with Riku and his friends' heavy breathing. Almost as if…

Riku looked down. Yep. His hand was glowing again. A quick glance showed that not only was Sora's hand also alit, but Kairi's, too. Another look at the Lizalfos showed that their gazes were also riveted on the shining limbs, reptilian expressions unreadable. Riku waved his right arm over his head. Dozens of eyes followed its path, pointed heads turning to keep it in their sights.

"Sora," Riku began.

"I know," the Hero of Light nodded shortly. "Why do you think it's stopped them?"

"Whoa!" Kairi yelped, aware for the first time of her hand's luminance. "What's…? Sora! Riku! Yours too?" She paused, remembering Destiny Islands and the Twilight Realm, where she had walked in on two conversations that quickly stopped when she came in, one of the boys hiding his hand each time.

"You knew. You _knew_!" she accused. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Not now, Kairi," Sora pleaded. "I'll tell you later, okay?"

"You'd better," Kairi acquiesced, realizing that this was not the time. The Lizalfos shifted, like a group of trees blown by the wind, murmuring to each other. There was a sudden surge among them that had the humans raising their Keyblades defensively before they realized that it was not an attack. The sea of lizards parted down the middle, allowing two of their number to reach the front. They didn't look different from the masses in face or figure, though one of them wore a necklace of some sort of fangs or claws and the other had three lines slashed across its breastplate, as if claws had been dragged over the metal.

Necklace and Slashed, as Riku mentally dubbed them, stopped a few feet away from Sora, regarding him with flat eyes and flickering tongues. Slashed opened his fanged mouth, and Riku expected him to yip—anticipated it, actually. The silence was getting under his skin.

"What is your name?" the lizard asked instead. Sora blinked, taken aback, and straightened from his fighting crouch. He had guessed that they were intelligent, yes, but an hour or so of fighting them had beaten away his hope that they spoke his language. Not to mention the sheer strangeness of human words coming from the same mouth that had been yapping like a dog.

"I'm Sora," he replied. "Why did you attack us? We were just passing through."

"Humans rarely pass through this part of the desert," Slashed said, not accusingly. The words were higher-pitched than one might expect, and not at all hissing. The pronunciation was somewhat distorted by their lack of lips and thin tongue, but perfectly intelligible nonetheless. "And even rarer are the ones who do so with no intentions of harming our kind."

"We didn't even know your kind existed," Sora argued. "And we're lost. If you'd just talked to us from the beginning we wouldn't have had to fight!"

"Truly you are what your markings show," Slashed remarked.

"What?"

"Naïve," was the blunt answer. Slashed turned from a stunned Sora to Riku, who had come up behind his friend while they had talked. Kairi flanked the other side, and the Twili edged to cluster behind them.

"You are a formidable fighter," it observed. "One would not expect that from you."

"I can be afraid and still fight," Riku shot back, irritated. Everyone he met, it seemed, felt the need to impress on him how scared he was of everything. It was humiliating. "Besides who's to say it's not glowing because I made _you_ afraid?" Slashed let out a barking laugh at that, baring its teeth in what might have been a smile.

"Perhaps. In any case, we had not expected to meet the three of you here, and certainly not for you to be children."

"Who is 'we'?" Sora wanted to know.

"We are the Lizalfos," Slashed told him. "I am Nihip, the…" the fluent flow of words stumbled for the first time. "It is difficult to translate. Literally it comes to 'one with less power than the one with most', but that is strange in this language."

"Lieutenant?" Kairi suggested.

"I suppose it works as well as anything. I am Nihip, the Lieutenant of this tribe, and this is Yeeap, the… chief, you would call it," Slashed, or Nihip, gestured to Necklace.

"Why isn't he saying anything?" Sora asked.

"As I said, our kind rarely have contact with humans. Few of us speak your language, and of our tribe only I speak it with any proficiency. Chief Yeeap does not speak it well, therefore I act as a translator," Nihip explained. There was a rustling of scales as Necklace, Chief Yeeap, shifted and opened his own snout.

"You three," the Chief's voice came out stiltedly, much higher than his Lieutenant's, almost singsong with sharp stops reminiscent of his native language's yips. "Claws have _Ihhiauap_."

"…Huh?" Sora's head slid to the side, confusion stamped across his features. His mind flashed back to a jungle world so long ago, and a man with the same sort of communication problems. Then the word had turned out to be 'heart' (and incredibly disillusioning and unhelpful at that—Sora had thought the man had actually had something relevant to say). Sora doubted that applied here, though.

"_Ihhiauap_ is another word that is difficult to translate since it is a proper noun," Nihip's tongue flickered as he thought. "As a regular noun it means 'reflection' but like this… it is a legend."

"Are you talking about the Mirror Triforce?" Sora started violently as Zant shoved his way between the brunet and Riku. He had all but forgotten the Twili were there.

"If that is what your people call it," Nihip blinked placidly. Zant growled wordlessly and snatched up his second cousin's hand to study the markings on it. What he saw seemed to displease him even further.

"Light Dwellers," he hissed. "Filthy _Light Dwellers_ bear the Mirror Triforce?!"

"Surely you did not expect your kind to be favored so by your Goddesses after such spectacular heresy?" the Lieutenant asked rhetorically. "It makes good sense that the antithesis of the Hylians is borne by those who walk with their enemies."

"What are you two talking about?" Riku demanded. "Obviously this stuff on our hands is this Mirror Triforce… or Ih-hee-whatever it is you called it. But what is it?"

"You might want to sit down for this one, cousin," Zant said dryly. "If you think you had identity issues before, you are in for quite the surprise."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

By the time Zant and Nihip had told the tale—with occasional input from Yeeap and Fren or Fren's soldiers—the moon was fairly high in the sky and all three 'Triforces' had stopped glowing. Most of the other Lizalfos had wandered off, bored with the extended conversation they could not understand. The Keybladers, Twili, and remaining Lizalfos had all seated themselves upon the sand while they talked.

"Are you telling me," Riku began once the others had fallen silent, "that we are some sort of Hylian version of the fricking _boogeyman_?"

"He swears when he's tired," Sora offered by way of excuse. The brunet himself was swaying where he sat, eyes hooded.

"Damn straight."

"I realize it is a lot to take in in one night," Nihip allowed, eyeing the trio strangely. _Probably questioning our mental facilities_, Riku thought with an internal snort.

"One thing I don't get is why _Riku_," Sora pointed to the silver-haired boy, as if there was any doubt to whom he was referring, "got chosen as the embodiment of fear. He's no coward; he's one of the bravest people I know."

"Fear is not cowardice," Fren put in gently. "Just as courage is not absence of fear. Courage is the ability to ignore that fear. The Triforce of Fear is the inability to ignore it, letting it affect your actions or thoughts. That is all. Riku might fight off an army of Lizalfos to protect his friends," the Twili flashed a small, apologetic smile at Yeeap and Nihip, who blinked politely back at her, "but if he is unable to silence the part of his mind that makes him check that they are still alive every ten seconds… that is fear." Riku bowed his head. Sora leaned closer, worry stamped across his face.

"Riku…?"

"I'm not brave, Sora. No matter how I try, every move I make is affected by my _fear_," he spat. "Joining Maleficent… fighting off Ansem… closing the Door to Darkness… giving in to the dark to defeat Roxas… even fighting with you against Xemnas at the very end. All because I was afraid…" The tall youth clamped his jaw shut on the words _of losing you_. If ever there was _not_ a place and time for a romantic confession…

"It's not _bad_," Sora argued against his friend's growing depression. "Even if you let your fear affect you, it's not bad. If you were scared during that fight, it only made you fight that much harder. It's okay to be scared as long as you don't…" Sora clamped his jaw shut on the words _keep hiding from me_. This was neither the time nor the place to go into that.

"At least you're not Dependence," Kairi added with forced cheer. "They might as well have called it Helplessness and finished my ego off for good."

"Depending on others to a degree isn't bad in and of itself, either," Nihip told the girl. "Asking for help is nothing to be ashamed of."

"You know we'd always help you, Kai," Sora hastened to assure her. "Any time you needed it. For anything!"

"I know," the girl pasted on a smile.

_Can't you see that's why I'm upset?_ She wanted to say. _I_ know _you'd do anything if I asked you to. I don't_ want _it. I need to do things on my own. I can't lean on you for the rest of my life, Sora. Can't you see that?_

She didn't say anything else.

"I think, of all of us, _I_ should be the most unhappy," Sora announced with a grin.

"You do look the very picture of misery," Riku agreed sarcastically.

"Hey, I used to be the Hero of Light, Savior of Worlds, Master of the Keyblade, and Kingdom Hearts' freaking Park Ranger," Sora justified. "Now I'm the Hylian boogeyman? The bad guy? I switched teams! They could have at least consulted me about it."

"Oh, Sora," Kairi laughed, unable to resist, "you've _always_ played for the other team." The brunet's face turned so red that Riku half-expected it to spontaneously combust. He would have commented, had his face not also flushed a slightly less spectacular shade of scarlet.

"The Hero of Light?" Zant repeated incredulously. "Savoir of Worlds? _You_?"

"Ah…" Sora chuckled nervously. "I knew there was something I'd forgotten to mention…"

"We're from Destiny Islands," Riku told his cousin. "Not Hyrule. Another world. We came here looking for Sora's other half, whom he seems to have misplaced. I don't suppose either of you have seen him?" He turned to the watching Lizalfos. "Blond bad-tempered little hellspawn? Creepily similar-looking to Sora here?"

"I have already told you that our contact with humans is minimal," Nihip repeated. "Besides which, you all look the same to me except for the color of your head-fur."

"It's called hair," Kairi corrected.

"Aw, _man_," Sora whined. "How am I supposed to find him now?"

"I believe that is the question, is it not?" Fren observed. "What do you do now that you know what power you hold?"

"Nothing."

"Keep in mind that whatever you choose will affect not only you, but countless oth—what?" Zant cut off his own warning, his jaw dropping open in a very un-Zant-like gesture to better enable his disbelieving gape. "Nothing?"

"Nothing," Sora repeated with a shrug. "I've held this kind of power for quite a while now. Do you think just anyone from the Islands can summon up a giant, magic key at will?"

"Since they've only ever met the three of us, that _would_ be a logical assumption," Riku told his friend. "Idiot," he added after a moment.

"Oh. Well… still, it's not exactly a common thing. My point is, I'm not obligated to do anything with it. It would be one thing if I held one of those others—Courage, Wisdom, or Power—because then I'd definitely help defeat the bad guys. But as one of the bad guys now myself, as long as I don't do anything with it, the others have no reason to kill me, and I have no reason to fight them for doing their jobs," Sora waved his hands in the air as he attempted to explain his complicated train of thought. "What I mean is, if I just found Roxas and went back home, there'd be no Mirror Triforce here anymore—no more threat to the regular Triforce holders. So I'm not going to do anything with it."

"But…" Nihip's voice broke into a yip in his distress. "But you are our kind's hope! _Ihhiauap_ cannot just abandon us."

"Hope?" Kairi repeated, confused.

"Yes," the lizard's eyes blazed earnestly. "We Lizalfos are seen as dumb beasts by the Hylians for all our intelligence, simply because our culture is 'primitive' and 'barbaric' in their eyes. They hunt us out of our own homes and display our hides as trophies, as if we were in truth animals. We cannot negotiate with them. Since the dawn of time, our only hope has been _Ihhiauap_—hope that they would come and save us from our persecution. Without you, the cycle cannot be broken, and we shall forever remain beasts in the Hylian's eyes."

"If King Gorm had known of your powers, he would have pledged far more support to your cause," Fren put in. "The Mirror Triforce has always been a cultural icon of the Twili—ever since our banishment, that is. It is our only hope for redemption as well."

"Triforce for Hylians, Zoras, Gorons, Kokiri, Gerudo," Chief Yeeap barked. "_Ihhiauap_ for others. Different sides. Different races. Same hope." The Lizalfos fell silent again, as if exhausted by this 'speech'.

"Just as well our symbol is carried by _Hylians_," Zant sneered. "Everything else is prejudiced, why not this, too?"

"For the last time, we're _not Hylian_," Riku snapped tiredly. "Get it through your thick blue skull. And whatever kind of expectations you have, forget them. We didn't ask for this, and we didn't want it. We're definitely not going to war against the dominant specie on this world with an army of _ten_. Besides, if this Mirror Triforce is a symbol for everyone else, that means the Triforce is a symbol for them. We aren't getting dragged into a religious war, either."

"Whether you want it or not, you're in it," Zant growled. "We're not asking you to run around preaching the faith or whatever, we're asking you to free us from oppression. Isn't that something the _Hero of Light and Savior of Worlds_ is supposed to do?"

"Yeah, but… I'm also not supposed to meddle," Sora shrugged helplessly. "I kinda blew that a while back, though…"

"The Land of Dragons, Wonderland, Atlantica, Agrabah, Olympus Coliseum, Neverland, Monstro…" Riku listed. "Hell, you going to high school on Destiny Islands probably counts as meddling, too."

"You meddled just as much as I did, if not more!" Sora protested, turning to his friend indignantly. "And just what were you doing, anyway, keeping track of every time I screwed up?" Riku shifted and didn't answer, his gaze dropping somewhat embarrassedly.

"So you admit yourself that that point is moot," Zant pressed. Sora ran a hand through his hair and sighed in frustration.

"Yeah, I guess. But I'm still not leading an army to a slaughter—of either side—because you follow some kind of religion centered around my character flaws," Sora argued.

"Then do not fight. We do not ask it of you. Of what use is naïveté in a battle, anyway?" Nihip waved his tail dismissively. "Simply negotiate with them. Convince them that we are intelligent beings with no wish to continue this pointless struggle with them."

"They don't, anyway," Zant chimed in. "We Twili just want to be allowed back into the Light Realm."

"But, Zant," Riku lifted one eyebrow in faux surprise, "wouldn't that make you a 'filthy Light Dweller' like us?"

"No," Zant glared. "It would stop this transparency creeping up my arms, is what it would _do_. I can practically read through my own hand now."

"Stop it, both of you," Kairi ordered tiredly. "Let's just go to sleep for now. Tomorrow we can talk about what we'll do next. Okay?"

"The girl speaks sense," Nihip nodded. "Tonight you may rest here, guarded by our warriors. In the morning we will speak again on this subject. Good night to you all."

"Good night," Yeeap echoed. Both Lizalfos rose, blinking politely at them all before turning away and returning to the watching group of their own kind. Several yips were exchanged, and soon a small contingent of Lizalfos broke away from the rest. The main group—casting a final look in the humans' direction—hopped up onto the larger mesa and bounded out of sight. The smaller group split into three groups that took up position on the three other sides of the newly-made box canyon, clearly acting as lookouts.

"So…" Sora looked around at the Twili. "Anyone trust them to guard us?" As it turned out, none of them trusted the Lizalfos to guard them. "Okay. Anyone want to volunteer to keep watch?" And, as it turned out, no one wanted to volunteer. In the end, the eleven Twili and three humans just curled up where they sat and slept on the sand, leaving the lizards to the desert night.


	17. 16: The Airing of Grievances

**Kitty: Sorry for the wait! School is starting where I am, so there's lots of shopping to be done and summer homework to dig out and half-ass. This chapter and the next one are my favorite parts of this whole fic, though, so I hope you enjoy them!**

**Axel: I can hardly contain my joy. At least I'm not acting weird anymore. Or… weirder for me. Or… you know what I mean.**

**Kitty: I do not own the Legend of Zelda or Kingdom Hearts! Stupid muse… Side note: does anyone else like Zant? I felt so sorry for him during TP, and writing him as a teenager has just made me grow fonder… Even if his stupid name sounds nothing like Midna's, making coming up with Twili names for OCs a flipping bitch.**

**Axel: Now, now, language. Bad Kitty.**

**Kitty: $%&! –Crashing noises. Screams-**

**Roxas: …Um, it looks a lot like the author just ripped my boyfriend to little bloody pieces… Enjoy the fic. I need to go sign some hospital forms… -grumble-**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XVI**

**The Airing of Grievances**

"_There's a point I think we're missing_

_It's in the air we raise our fists in_

_In the smiles we cast each other_

_My sister, my brother."_

—_Rise Against, 'Behind Closed Doors'_

Roxas lounged on sun-warmed stone, kicking his feet idly. As usual, he was bored out of his skull. Not even nightly (self-set) survival missions in Hyrule Field could liven up his dull, day-in, day-out routine. Axel and Sheik were still gone half of the time, warping all over the world, and Link had resumed his usual errand-boy duties in the interest of not going stark-raving nuts from boredom. …Like Roxas.

The blond Nobody blew a sigh and tipped his head back, staring at the sky. It was blue. It was _always _blue.

"Doesn't it ever _rain_ in this place?!" Roxas growled, smacking the back of his head lightly against the stone behind it.

"If you're thirsty, they've got water in the castle, you know," a voice informed him. "It's a lot quicker than waiting for rain." A blonde head popped over the lip of the ledge he was seated on, followed by a tan arm. A blue-clad figure clambered up beside him, to regard the Nobody with twinkling blue eyes.

"It's not the rain," Roxas grumbled, not looking at Tetra. "It's the _sameness_. At this point, I want the war to happen already! The sooner it's over with, the sooner I can leave this place and maybe even go _home_."

"It's not so bad," Tetra mused, looking out over the Field. "It's very pretty, actually."

"If you were raised on Hyrule," Roxas contradicted. "I'm a city kind of guy. I like pavement, skyscrapers, _modernization._ Not this rural stuff."

"I can't imagine it," Tetra admitted, leaning back. "All I've ever known is Hyrule. I definitely can't imagine a place that makes Castle Town look rural."

"Trust me, it exists," Roxas said. "And I want to go back."

"So… what are you doing way up here, anyway?" Tetra gestured downwards at the ground, which was quite a ways away. "And how'd you get up here?"

"I ran," Roxas shrugged.

"Up the side of a cliff?" Tetra raised one eyebrow.

"How did _you_ get up here?"

"I climbed, like any normal, sane person. I used to climb cliffs in the desert all the time on patrol. This thing was nothing. You still haven't said why you came up here. And what's that in your lap?"

"This," Roxas hefted the object proudly, revealing it to be a roughly-carved board of wood, curved slightly at either end, "is my skateboard. I've been working on it for a while now, to keep myself from going crazy with boredom. I don't know where I'm going to use it, since nothing around here is paved, but…" he shrugged. "I guess I'll take it for a joyride around Zelda's throne room or something. You know, scandalize all the nobles or whatever."

Tetra giggled at that. It was a very unladylike giggle, all snorts and the occasional breathless cackle. "So you came up here to—eheheheh—whittle your skate-board?"

"That's just a side-job. Really, I'm helping Sheik," Roxas told the Princess's Nobody. "Axel told me to pick a hiding place, and Sheik would try to warp to me. It's supposed to teach him how to open a portal to a person or object as opposed to a place. I chose this cliff for a few reasons. First of all, I like high places, and I'm probably going to be here a while. Secondly, there are cliffs everywhere around here, so it's a nondescript hiding spot. And third…" Roxas grinned wickedly, pointing to the narrow lip of rock. "With any luck, Axel will fall off when they both try to step out onto it."

"You're evil," Tetra noted.

"Just pissed at Axel," Roxas turned his gaze back out to the Field beneath them. "Maybe this will make him stop ignoring me," he added in a murmur.

"I see."

"So how's it going at the castle? Any word on those soldiers we sent out yet?" Roxas asked.

"Actually, that was what I came up here to tell you," Tetra said. "They're back. Well… most of them are."

"What happened?" Roxas sat up straight. The Princess had sent out that scouting team weeks ago. Everyone had been worried by their absence, and the Princess herself had been wracked with guilt thinking she'd sent them to their deaths (according to Link, anyway. To Roxas's untrained eye, she had seemed as regal and aloof as she ever had).

"They found two of the Mirror Triforce bearers," Tetra related. "They were on another world." Anger colored Tetra's voice. "That idiot of a captain decided to disregard his orders and attack them."

"Oh, God," Roxas said, eyes wide. His fingers clenched convulsively on the edge of his unfinished skateboard. "How did they escape? I thought these Mirror Triforce bearers were supposed to be, like, some of the strongest people ever?"

"They are, but for some reason they didn't kill the soldiers," Tetra paused and a dark look passed over her face. "At least, they didn't kill all of them. Most were just knocked out, but Grant… They didn't just kill him. They _massacred _him."

Roxas wasn't sure that was the correct use of the word 'massacre' but kept the observation to himself. This was serious stuff. The first casualty in the war… the Key of Destiny felt ashamed that moments ago he had been wishing for the war to begin. His grip on the board tightened unconsciously.

"He was their player," Tetra continued. "The bearers left his flute, though. The reason it took them so long to return was first they had to figure out how to play it, and then once they had they ended up in Kokiri Village, because their new player had always wanted to see the fairies. Thank the Goddesses he hadn't always wanted to see the Lost Woods, or we might never have seen them again. They're back now, though, and Zelda's meeting with Link to figure out their next move. If the bearers are on another world we don't want to invade… but what were they doing on the other world anyway, since the Triforce is here in Hyrule?"

"Don't ask me," Roxas waved his hand. "I still don't quite get why the incarnations of ultimate evil _didn't_ kill their enemies."

"They probably wanted them to report back," Tetra theorized grimly. "That's what Link thinks, anyway. The Princess thinks they let themselves be seen on another world to make us think they're no threat to us."

"Still, they only killed one soldier?" Roxas furrowed his brow.

"Don't be fooled, Roxas," Tetra warned. "They're the opposite force of the Goddesses' power. That makes them evil, see? They're trying to mess with your head. At least one of them _is _a coward by definition."

"I guess," the Key of Destiny kicked his feet idly, wishing for some sea-salt ice cream. "How're you holding up, by the way?"

"What do you mean?"

"Meeting your Somebody for the first time," Roxas clarified. "Sheik was wondering if you'd have an inferiority complex like me or be completely fine with it like him. We're trying to ascertain if it has to do with the Nobody's personality, or how long they've been alive. You've been around as long as Sheik, so… Any trouble?"

"Nope," Tetra denied with a big smile. Roxas groaned and fell back. Looked like he was the only one with inferiority issues… Even _Naminé _was dealing with this better than he was… Damn, that just made the inferiority worse…

"Mine's got a lot to do with the fact that I still haven't quite wrapped my head around it, though," the Gerudo girl continued. "I mean, you come into my life and suddenly Lady Nabooru is telling me that I'm not a real person? It's too much, too fast. I still feel like me."

"You are you," Roxas said sadly. "You've developed your own personality. Zelda would never be this cheerful or open… Sheik's a completely different person from Link because of the whole Vulcan mind-meld thing he had going on with Zelda… and Naminé had her own unique trauma to go through to make her herself."

"You left yourself out of that litany," Tetra noted, filing away the phrase 'Vulcan mind-meld' for later clarification. "From what Axel tells me, you're a very different person from your Somebody, too."

"Maybe so," Roxas sighed. "But I didn't get any of that 'time to grow and become my own person' crap. I had all my memories forcibly erased so that any original personality I had developed was _gone_. Do you know that when I dreamt of being my Somebody, the only way I could tell I wasn't me was that everyone was calling me by _his_ name? I felt what _he_ felt… I acted how _he_ acted… And it affected me when I was awake, too. I'm nothing but a poor copy. A shadow. Of _him_."

Tetra didn't have much to say to that, for once. Roxas wasn't sure if it was because she disagreed and didn't want to fight or because she couldn't find a good argument against her own thoughts. He was willing to bet on the second one, though; Tetra had left her home to join a war she wasn't part of—she clearly had no issues with starting fights. The two blond nobodies simply stared out at the haze beyond the cliffs on the other side of the Field, lost in their own thoughts.

The boy was yanked out of these thoughts a few moments later by a familiar sight just to his left. A mixed-paint spill of purple and black bleeding into each other, a spot of red just above the center of it. Axel stepped out onto the ledge with a confident stride, his usual smirk already in place.

That smirk slipped a bit as his confident stride came down on thin air, pitching the redhead forward, headfirst over the side of a cliff.

Roxas clutched his sides, howling with laughter at the look on Axel's face as the Hero of Time's Nobody was forced to haul him up by the back of his coat. Oh yes, this was _so_ worth breaking his decision to remain landbound for the rest of his life... The portal behind them vanished as master and pupil collapsed in a heap together, struggling as gently as it was possible to struggle due to the proximity of the edge that Axel had nearly fallen off of. It was a few minutes before they were separated, both pressed flat to the cliff behind them and panting with stress.

Quadruple metaphorical daggers stabbed into Roxas's temple, two of malachite and two of garnet. Roxas swiped at his watering eyes with his hands, trying to suppress the bubbling laughter in his chest in the interest of not getting shoved off the cliff himself.

"…So how was your training session?" Tetra asked brightly. Axel didn't even look at her.

"What in the hell was that for, Roxas?!" he demanded. Roxas met his gaze, his smile wiped away, though his internal satisfaction increased twofold. Finally, a serious reaction. No more breezy, carefree Axel _now_.

"You told me to choose a hiding place," he answered innocently. "I did. I didn't know you were going to walk right off the edge." Axel's eyes narrowed, and his mouth opened slightly, but Sheik beat him to the punch.

"That is a lie," the hooded young man said. He didn't say it accusingly, though. He sounded almost… surprised. Roxas frowned. What was to be surprised about? He was a scrupleless teenager. He lied all the time.

"No, it's not. Even Axel should know better than to walk right out like…"

"You're _lying_," Sheik insisted. Once more, his tone seemed more amazed than angry. "I… I can see it."

"…See what?" Roxas blinked, looking down at himself. What, was he twitching or something? Perceptive Sheik may have been, but a polygraph he wasn't.

"I can see your lie," Sheik said dazedly. He leaned closer, examining Roxas's skin minutely. "…Lie again. I need to see…"

"Um," Roxas blinked again. This was certainly strange. But Sheik had never been anything but calm and level-headed before, so Roxas trusted him not to go crazy now. "I hate sea-salt ice cream?"

"There!" Sheik pointed triumphantly, nearly taking out Roxas's eye. The Key of Destiny jerked back to avoid it, while Sheik reared back. "I saw it again!"

"Hey, Sheik," Tetra called out. "I don't mind wearing a veil."

"Marluxia's hair color was natural," Axel chimed in with a smirk. Sheik turned to both of them with a frown.

"…It's getting fainter, now…"

"I never want to go back to Twilight Town," Roxas tried. Sheik's frown deepened.

"It's almost gone…"

"I like seafood," Tetra said. Axel and Roxas turned to her quizzically. She shrugged. "What? I don't."

"It's gone now," Sheik was frustrated. "What was that? For a few minutes, I could see your lies as a nimbus around you. I have never seen anything like it before."

"…Hey, Sheik," Roxas spoke up. The Hero of Time's Nobody turned to him with one eyebrow raised. Roxas raised his arm and held his hand at right angles to it, as if flattened against an invisible wall. "Hold your hand out like this."

"…As you wish," Sheik obeyed, looking mystified. "May I ask what for?"

"No. Now shut your eyes and think of something strong, something sharp," the boy instructed. In his hand, a multitude of white fireflies seemed to gather, flashing once before solidifying into the black Keyblade known as Oblivion. Sheik's eyes slid shut as well.

After a moment, a similar swarm of glowing lights descended upon his hand. The shape they outlined was much longer than Roxas's blade, though. A bright flash cleared up the light, to reveal Sheik's weapon.

It was a chain, long and coiled, dangling in loops from his fingers, which had clenched reflexively around it. Each link was spiked, like an interlocking vine of metal thorns, shining brilliant silver in the sunlight. It was a beautifully deadly, graceful weapon. Subtle, yet biting.

Roxas had no time for it, barely even glanced at it. "Quickly, open your eyes! Look at me!" Sheik did so, and Roxas, in his haste, blurted out the first lie that came to mind. "I didn't like kissing Axel!"

There was a single beat of silence, in which all three Nobodies besides Roxas blinked in surprise, and Roxas himself clapped his hands over his mouth in horror.

"…That is a lie," Sheik said slowly, acutely aware that he wasn't helping the situation. He hurried to change the subject. "I can see lies again. What is this strange phenomenon?"

"Magic," Roxas, relieved by the easy out, replied. "When you use your magic, this lie-seeing thing is a side-effect for a little while afterwards, and probably while you're using it, too."

"I get it," Axel nodded. Roxas breathed an internal sigh of relief when he didn't comment.

"I think it is more of a truth-seeing thing than a lie-seeing one," Sheik murmured. "But why? None of you have any abilities such as this."

"And that's where you're wrong, ninja-boy," Axel grinned. He held out his own hand palm-up at his side. A small pillar of flame whirled to life in it. The redhead played with the ball of fire for a few minutes, tossing it from hand to hand and molding it into different shapes, all the while grinning. "What's happening here is your element finally making itself known. You see, when a Nobody first learns to use his or her magic, he or she discovers that one type of that magic is easier for him or her than any other. So easy, they don't even need a spell to do it. In my case, it's fire. Demyx was water, Xaldin was wind, Larxene was lightning, and so on. It's not always a natural element, though, like Xigbar's gravity, and Zexion's illusions."

"My element," Sheik said as if trying the words out, finding them to have a strange—though not unpleasant—taste in his mouth, "is truth?"

"Looks like it," Roxas agreed. "And you've found your weapon, too. We can each summon one whenever we want, like Axel's chakram. Yours is a whip… apparently."

"So it would seem," Sheik agreed, inspecting his weapon. One bandaged hand took hold of the handle, allowing the slim chain to hiss softly to the rocky ledge. There was a sharp _CRACK_ a moment later, and bits of rubble rained down on the Nobodies' heads. The whip slithered quietly back down to coil around Sheik's feet. Roxas ducked belatedly, jumping with shock. He hadn't even seen it move. That whip was fast…

"I like it," the braided boy decided, his tone smug. "Though I must confess to some surprise. I had thought that summoning my weapon would be more… challenging."

"Of course it's easy," Roxas shrugged, trying to cover up his scare. "If it was hard, we wouldn't be able to do it so quickly. We'd be helpless in an ambush."

"That is true," Sheik cast the boy an amused glance, as if to say that he knew was Roxas was trying to conceal. The Hero of Light's Nobody scowled. This was going to be a pain, Sheik knowing everything he was lying about…

"Come on, I think your portal work is good enough," he pushed himself to his feet, dusting off his backside with one hand while the other tucked his soon-to-be skateboard under his arm. "It's time you learned to control your magic and use it—spells as well as your element."

"What's your element, Roxas?" Tetra wanted to know. Roxas sighed heavily.

"…I don't know," he admitted. "I must have one, every Nobody does, I just… don't know what it is. I'm no better at any elemental spell than any other, but my physical attacks aren't particularly powerful, either. No special abilities like Sheik or Zexion or Xigbar."

"I see…" Sheik was quiet for a moment. "…Might your element not reflect that Triforce of yours?"

"Balance?" Roxas looked at the back of his hand blankly. Then, he shook his head. "I don't think so… I mean, you've got the same one as me, right? It couldn't be."

"I'm sure you know best," Sheik said placidly. "I'll open us a portal back to level ground, then, shall I?" Without waiting for permission, the tall youth turned and gestured, creating another vortex. He stepped into it confidently. Tetra climbed to her feet and brushed past Roxas, winking at him as she went. The Key of Destiny paused, confused by the wink.

His confusion was cleared a moment later as the portal disappeared, banished with a wave from Axel. Roxas scowled at the redhead to mask his nervousness.

"What was that for?"

"We need to talk," Axel stated, crossing his arms. For the first time in days, he looked serious. Roxas set his board carefully down by his feet where it wouldn't get kicked off the ledge, straightening up to match his grim expression.

"We haven't talked in days. Why start now?" he demanded. Axel sighed.

"If you were mad at me, why didn't you just say something?" the older Nobody uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, looking like a toddler stamping his feet, except that no toddler had ever bared their teeth quite so fearsomely. "Damn it, Rox, that was the whole point of this!"

"The whole point of what?" Roxas spread his hands in bewilderment.

"The whole point of _not_ talking with you for days!" Axel threw up his hands. "I swear, you are the densest boy to walk the earth since your own Somebody! I saw that you were uncomfortable, so I backed off. I figured that if you felt the same, you'd come to me. Clearly, I forgot that you are an idiot. I'll try to memorize that next time."

"You… What?" Roxas's mouth dropped open. Of all the… He hadn't expected _that_. Axel… being… considerate…?

_Warning: This server has encountered a serious error. Reboot of the program is advised._

Roxas shook his head violently and blinked hard.

"I didn't… I thought… you'd changed your mind," he said confusedly. Axel's face softened slightly. He stepped forward, reaching out an unsure hand. Roxas moved forward as well, allowing the hand to settle on his shoulder.

"Stupid idiot. Of course not. I'm not that fickle," the Flurry of Dancing Flames snorted. "Roxas… we need to sort some things out. We need to _talk_."

"I honestly never thought I'd hear you asking to talk about feelings," Roxas mumbled, not meeting his partner's gaze. The hand on his shoulder migrated upwards, cupping his jaw in its palm and tilting his head until wintergreen orbs filled his vision.

"Well, I am. I need to know if you're okay with…" Axel sighed, a hint of frustration coloring his voice. "This is new to me, too, okay? I just… You're important to me, Roxas. If you're… If you don't…"

"I…" Roxas had to force himself not to look away. "You're my best friend Axel. That friendship is… one of the most important things in my life," he admitted. "It's real. It's the only friendship I've ever had with someone _real_, not like Hayner and those guys. Not even like Sheik. I… really value that."

"Oh…" Axel's eyes dropped, his tone plummeting with them. "So that's how it is…"

"But…" Roxas's voice forestalled him. "…I did like kissing you. It's not really the friendship I value, Axel… it's you. I don't know if… I mean, I've never really been in love, so I don't know…" He blurted out the last bit as quickly as he could, half-hoping Axel wouldn't catch it. His face was hot enough to fry an egg on.

"Neither have I," Axel said, interrupting him. "We don't really have hearts, Roxas. I don't know if we can. But… if you don't mind… I like kissing you, too." Axel grinned crookedly. Roxas smiled back, his face still burning.

"Then, for now… We can work things out," he said. And then Roxas rose up onto his toes and kissed Axel. The redhead jerked slightly in surprise, and Roxas was pleased to see a slight tint in his cheeks. And then Axel's lips moved on his and his eyes slid shut of their own accord, swept away.

It was like his fantasies of the past few days come alive. Axel's hand snaked around the small of his back, pulling the smaller Nobody to his chest, while the other stayed placed on his jaw. Roxas's hands balled up in the fabric of Axel's coat, clutching his shoulders to balance himself as he rose onto the very tips of his toes. (Had Axel always been this damn _tall_?) When Axel's tongue came out to trace the outline of his lips, it was just a continuation of the fantasy. So Roxas opened his own mouth to let it in.

It tasted like mint. Roxas dizzily wondered if Axel chewed gum or something, before the slippery muscle twisted against his own and he lost the power of actual thought. He hadn't known tongues could _do_ that... Surely it was against _some_ kind of rule...

Roxas, realizing that he wasn't quite as mentally incoherent as he had thought, made a conscious effort to banish all extraneous thoughts from his mind.

This time it worked.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The room was small, but packed. Weapons glinted in the firelight, points of light indistinguishable from the stars reflected off of the eyes of the room's occupants. They stood silently, the glints of weapons and eyes alike focused on the man at the front of the room. His voice was powerful, yet quiet enough that no one outside of the room—even if their ears were pressed to the door—would hear anything more intelligible than the murmur of voices. It caught and held the attention of all listening to it, freezing their weapons in their hands and trapping their eyes like flies in honey.

"…stand for this no longer," the man was saying, his fists raised in a physical imitation of the reins of his audience's imaginations, clenched within his hands. "I will not, and nor shall you, my sisters!"

The room ruffled, like a windswept pond, shifting and glancing nervously. Only one person out of many found the voice to speak up, her identity concealed among the many others around her. "What about Lady Nabooru?"

"Lady Nabooru is your Lady no longer," the man shook his head sadly. "Or, rather, she is everyone's Lady, and not personally our own. She is a Sage now. The Sages should not be tied to one people, one culture. They have transcended all of that, and are now of all peoples and all cultures. But we mortals need our divisions; they are what keep us strong and united. We cannot be led by a woman who cannot do what is best for our people because she must also cater to our enemies. We must have a leader just as human as the people she—or he—leads."

The wind swept across the pond once more. Again, the woman spoke up, a little louder this time. "And that leader is you, Ganondorf?"

"If you will have me," Ganondorf acknowledged with a smile. "I once led the Gerudo to a glorious age of prosperity and plenty. I can do so again—if only we cast off this obsolete regime under which we toil now, and bring in a newer, grander leadership. Mortals cannot be ruled by those who cling to times long gone. We cannot prosper if our government is not able to change along with the people it governs!"

This time, several Gerudo women called out, the wind much stronger than before.

"Lady Nabooru abandoned us to plot with the Hylians!"

"I heard they were preparing for war."

"What do you propose we do, Lord Ganondorf?"

Ganondorf's smile was as slick and thin as a veneer of oil on water. "The Hylians are indeed preparing for war. They think to shelter you 'fragile women' from the truth, but I know better than any that the Gerudo are not flowers to be protected, but warriors stronger than any of their precious Hylian _men_." The wind grew to a howl as the warrior women raised their weapons and roared their approval, cries of support intermixed with demands for the truth.

"I tell you now, brave warriors," Ganondorf raised his voice and threw up his hands as if conducting the hurricane, "that Hyrule is on the brink of war with the holders of that pagan symbol: the Mirror Triforce!" The wind suddenly petered out into a hushed murmur, as the Gerudo gasped with shock. Ganondorf nodded gravely.

"Yes, that is right. Our long-held fears have been realized, and not even our Lady Nabooru can stop it from coming. But we need not fear these so-called Mirror-bearers, for they shall aid us in our efforts to reclaim the Gerudo's lost glory."

"What is your plan, my lord?" the Gerudo murmured as one, their glinting eyes fixed once more on the man in front of them, though their weapons now shone for another target entirely. Ganondorf smiled his oil-on-water smile once more.

"My plan is simple: We wait for the war. We allow it to happen. Perhaps a few of us even help, fighting on the side of the Hylians." There was a shifting discontent at this, which the holder of the Triforce of Power quelled with a placating gesture. "Fear not, for the ones fighting in that battle shall be the foolish ones, those who blindly follow Lady Nabooru even to the detriment of the Gerudo people, while you, the loyal ones, remain hidden. Then, once the fighting has ceased, you shall make your move. Even if the Hylians prove victorious, they shall be severely weakened. That is the time for us to strike, for us to sweep down and eliminate the remainder of the Hylian army. Then, once they are defenseless before us, the Gerudo shall reclaim their rightful place as the mistresses of Hyrule. And should the evil ones win, well… our work is done for us, and all that is left is for us to kill the forsaken Triforce-wielders and retake our throne. And should the Hylians lose to Naïveté, Fear, and Dependence," Ganondorf paused to chuckle, "then we have even less to fear than I had thought."

He stepped forward, noting with pleasure that not a single Gerudo's hand tightened on her weapon at his approach. He spread his arms wide to either side, his voice rising.

"For too long have the Hylians held themselves in such superiority over us. For too long have they protected monsters like that thieving Sheikah, or that veil-less disgrace to her sex!"

"Tetra…" the Gerudo growled as one. The wind darkened to a current of blackness, wrapping its tendrils tightly around the minds of each warrior in attendance.

"The Gerudo shall be as they once were: mighty, unchallenged rulers!" Ganondorf all but shouted. "Go forth, my sisters, and tell only those most loyal of Gerudo of our plan to regain our tarnished honor. All those who remain blindly within the service of Lady Nabooru must not know, lest they warn our enemies in advance." Ganondorf's smile widened to show sharp canines. "And, come autumn, we shall be rid of both they and their Hylian masters for good. Now, let me tell you their strategy and how we are going to _improve_ it…"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The two-column formation was no longer feasible for Sora and Co.'s jaunty march through the scorching desert. Now, with the addition of Captain Yeeap's entire tribe—which numbered somewhere in the 150-200 range—they became an amorphous blob that traveled across the dunes in the manner of a swirling bank of fog (or, as Riku put it, a monstrous green-and-white amoeba) with the leaders of its many factions loosely placed at its head.

At the moment, the Twili had dispersed among the Lizalfos, each rabidly curious about the other. It amused Riku to see a group of Lizalfos exchanging fighting moves with a few Twili soldiers, none of whom could understand a word the others were saying. Zant had acquired two extra swords from the lizard-folk, both of which were much thicker and heavier than any human blade in his hands. Still, the Twilight Prince seemed happy that he was no longer 'helpless'—never mind that he had no idea how to wield his new weapons—and that was enough for Riku. As long as he didn't have to listen to his cousin whine…

Riku himself was currently struggling along at the forefront of the 'army' up the side of an enormous dune, Sora at his side. Kairi was off talking with Fren, while Yeeap and Nihip were in deep conference with one another in the Lizalfos's native language.

"You… holding up okay… Riku?" Sora panted, dragging his forearm across his forehead. The two boys were bent almost double, practically scrambling along on all fours, so steep was the dune they were scaling. Riku looked over at him oddly.

"I'm fine. Why do… you ask…?" he huffed back.

"You're taller," Sora said as if this explained everything. "You have more surface area."

Riku blinked twice, wondering if he'd gotten sand in his ear. Sora looked back earnestly. Finally, the silver-haired youth began to chuckle breathlessly.

"God, Sora, you're so weird," he shook his head. Sora took this accusation with a shrug and a smile, and the climb continued in relative silence. For a few minutes, anyway.

"So, why did the entire Lizalfos population decide to tag along with us, again?" Riku broke the quiet, glancing back at the rippling mass of brown-green scales and glinting silver armor. "I mean, for a negotiation party this is pretty… butch."

"Yeeap said he couldn't leave anyone in charge in his stead," Sora explained, "because when he returned… well, he couldn't have returned. His words were 'usurpation is all but assured'. Even if he left Nihip, Nihip would have taken over while he was gone, and he'd either be killed for trying to come back, or exiled. It's a cultural thing."

"And they wonder why these Hylians think they're barbaric," Riku shook his head again, slower this time. Sweat dripped off the end of his nose. He paused in their forward movement, tipping his head back to scan the sky. Sora came to a stop next to him, his shoes slipping slightly in the sand. "I think we could break for lunch once we're over this dune."

"Yeah, I'm beat," Sora agreed. "At least with the Lizalfos we don't have to worry about starving anymore. They know how to forage here."

"I knew there was a bright side to all of this," Riku rolled his eyes. The two shared a small smile and turned to continue their ascent.

Half an hour later showed the whole group camping out at the base of the dune. Only one cooking fire had been started, around which the Twili and three humans were gathered. The rest of Lizalfos consumed various desert animals raw, casting the cooking carcasses suspicious glances and yipping to one another in amusement.

Then again, their amusement might have also stemmed from Zant's antics.

"What exactly are you doing?" Riku finally demanded, after the Twilight Prince had capered past their fire for the fourth time, kicking sand dangerously close to his roasting desert hare—the largest game he'd seen since coming to this godforsaken armpit of Hyrule. The blue-skinned youth barely glanced at his cousin, continuing to dance around as if on hot coals, waving his arms spastically. "Trying to call down the rain?"

"I, dear cousin," Zant said with dignity, "am practicing."

"Practicing what? Going to try out at the World's Worst Dancing Competition?" Riku sniped. "If so, you're a shoe-in. So stop kicking sand all over my lunch."

"I am practicing with these swords the Lizalfos were kind enough to give me," Zant sneered, somehow managing to make the word 'kind' sound like a racial slur.

"…You've never touched a sword in your life, have you?" Riku guessed, watching his second cousin deftly reduce a scrubby bush to twigs… by stomping all over it, while swinging his swords a good three feet above it.

"No. His Majesty said it was foolish to train any of us before our ascension to the throne was assured, in case we assassinated each other," Zant snorted. "As if we couldn't just hire others to do that anyway."

"I thought you were the prince," Kairi put in, cocking her head to the side. "Doesn't _that_ assure your ascension to the throne?"

"No," Zant gritted his teeth, his swinging increasing in tempo, if not in aptitude. "There are three others my age who could succeed King Gorm in my place. When he is no longer able to rule, the nobles will hold an election of sorts to determine the new ruler, and the other three will just become regular nobility."

"Are they your brothers and sisters?" Kairi pressed.

"No," Zant repeated, more emphatically. "Cousins. First cousins, the children of Lady Hetara—King Gorm's sister—not like dearest Riku there, who is a generation removed. So it's me, Tillea, Ralleigh, or Midna who will become the next king or queen. Sorry to disappoint."

"Like I'd want to rule anyone, much less you," Riku rolled his eyes. "I'd go blind within a year of looking at everything underwater."

"Good," Zant said grimly. "Because the last thing I need is more competition. It should be _me_. I'm His Majesty's son, his heir! It's ridiculous that one of those brats should take my place just because we're of similar age."

"I get the feeling this is a touchy subject," Sora leaned close to Riku to murmur behind his hand. Riku nodded in agreement.

"So don't you think ol' Uncle Gorm will be a little upset that you're… ahem, _learning_ to handle a blade while you're away?" he changed the subject. The last thing he wanted to do was get into a discussion about Twili politics. And who knew what might happen if Fren or one of her soldiers joined in. He had a feeling that Zant wouldn't hesitate to rat any of them out for treason or something to his father when they returned to the Twilight Realm.

"I don't think the King has anything to worry about there," Kairi giggled, watching Zant loose his footing in the sand and nearly impale himself on his own blade.

"I'm a better mage than a warrior," Zant conceded reluctantly, rubbing his abdomen as if to make sure it was still whole and un-punctured. He stared blankly at his sword for a moment before brightening, a gleam entering his yellow eyes. "That's it! If I combine magic with this…" he began to mumble to himself distractedly.

Riku glanced at Sora, who shrugged back at him. The part-Twili boy turned to his cousin. "Something on your mind, Zant?"

"Quiet," Zant ordered. "I'm thinking…" he continued to mumble to himself, setting one sword carefully on the sand so that he could dig around in his exoskeleton's pocket with his now-free hand. After a moment, he withdrew two dark objects with a muffled "Ah-ha!"

Riku peered closer. Zant's hand was almost as clear as glass now, distorting objects seen through it as if it were glass in truth, slightly tinted blue. The Twili had recently discovered that their feet, too, had begun to disappear, while the transparency had already spread right up to their shoulders. It didn't seem to bother any of them now that they had decided they were merely being sent back to the Twilight Realm rather than, you know, dying. Riku wondered vaguely if, back in the Twilight Castle, half-solid bits of Zant were floating around and freaking out the nobles. He laughed, shuddered, and decided to stop thinking about it.

In any case, the lack of opacity in the Prince's fingers afforded the Keyblader a clear view of what he held. They looked to be two purplish-black crystals, no bigger than the first joint of Riku's thumb. Zant took one crystal between his thumb and forefinger of one hand, bringing one of his swords closer with the other one.

"What are you doing?" Sora wanted to know. Zant didn't look up as he answered.

"These are Twilight Crystals," he said, pressing the one stone against the pommel of his sword and holding it there. "They amplify Twilight magic, so I always have a few on me just in case. Though they tend to make spells… unreliable."

"Meaning you can't control them," Riku translated. "Well, I'm glad at least you didn't take it into your head to try helping when the Lizalfos attacked. You probably would have killed us all."

Zant shot his younger cousin a nasty look. "Indeed. And what a tragedy that would have been. In any case, if I implant them on these swords, it should imbue the blades with Twilight magic, thus allowing me to use them as arcane tools as well as physical blades. That should make it easier for me to fight with them. In theory, of course." The semi-transparent hand drew back, leaving the jewel embedded in the pommel of the Lizalfos blade. Zant did the same for his other sword, and he soon had a matching set.

…Which he then proceeded to wave around like a sushi chef gone criminally insane.

"I wouldn't hold my breath, cousin mine," Riku began to laugh and turn back to his desert hare, which was by this time grilled to perfection. He was interrupted by Zant's sudden fall backwards, his arms and swords flailing wildly. One sword went flying off to the side, while the other sank deep into the sand next to the fallen Twili.

Zant sat up, groaning, to blink blearily at whatever had tripped him, doing his best to ignore the Keybladers' schadenfreude. It had felt hard, pointy. Nothing like a rock. It had sounded… hollow…

At that moment, the cooking fire began to gutter crazily, as if in a strong wind. Sand was shaken from the trembling branches of nearby scrub, and a startled ground owl took flight when the cactus above its burrow began to rattle. The very sand beneath the assorted gathering began to shift and slide and shake, throwing up clouds of blinding dust. The Lizalfos leaped to their claws with yelps of shock, followed quickly by the Twili. Riku reached out and hauled Kairi up by her arm when the girl looked ready to topple. Sora clung to the taller boy's shoulder for much the same reason.

The haze of airborne grit obscured Zant from vision, stinging Riku's eyes and skin. He began to take a step forward—to find the insufferable royal brat; not even he deserved to be buried in a sudden desert earthquake—but paused in the act, startled by a rising noise that cut through the bone-deep rumbling that shook the wasteland around them. A moment of incomprehensive confusion passed before Riku's blood ran cold with realization.

Screams.

Zant was screaming.

"Zant!" the boy made to run forward. This time he was not stopped of his own volition, but by his own momentum. The sand slid right out from under his feet like the beach pulled by an outgoing tide. He fell hard onto his back, sand immediately pouring down to cover his legs.

Two sets of hands grabbed under his armpits and hauled the boy away before any more of him could be consumed by the sandy death trap, only stopping when the sand beneath them grew solid once more. (Or, as solid as sand during an earthquake got.) Riku lay panting on his back, staring in awe as a dark shape loomed up before him through the brown clouds. It grew, larger and larger, until it practically blotted out the sun behind it. Sand poured down like dripping water from its form, feeding the fog of dirt that choked them all and scoured their exposed skin.

Two red lights blinked to life at the dark shape's very top, cutting through the haze with malevolent intent. The red lights fixed upon the Keybladers like the headlights of an oncoming car—inevitable and unmistakably harmful.

And through it all, Zant's screams grew fainter.


	18. 17: Lording It

**Kitty: My favorite chapter ever. Hope you enjoy. I'm only updating this quickly because I've gone a full forty-eight hours without sleep and I don't deal well with fatigue. 'Don't deal well' here having the meaning of 'systematically replacing my blood with Coca-Cola, ranting about how great cats are to my cute li'l kitten, eating about half a bowl of uncooked brownie batter, and feeling like my head is one giant cotton ball'. 8P I can feel the salmonella setting in as we speak…**

**Axel: Okay, I'm no expert… but that doesn't seem healthy.**

**Kitty: It's not! ^-^ But that's okay, cuz I probably won't remember half of today tomorrow! When I'm this tired, it's very similar to being drunk… I do lotsa random stuff online that I look over the next day and go 'damn, was I BLITZED or what?!' I anticipate being a happy, talkative drunk when I'm older if this is anything to go by…**

**Axel: …Okay, I think it's pretty obvious this particular freak does not own Kingdom Hearts or Legend of Zelda.**

**Kitty: Enjoy! It's my favorite! –wanders off to pet a kitten-**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XVII**

**Lording It**

"_It's like he's speaking English, but the words aren't coming together in a way that makes any sense…"_

—_Sarge, 'Red vs. Blue'_

"**Living ones**..."

The voice echoed around the Keybladers, vibrating through their bones and resonating through the surrounding emptiness. The red lights drew closer, grew larger, and now Riku could see that they were glowing eyes set in the dark outline of a head. The creature was massive, he could tell that much even through the obscuring sand. Its head alone was twice as long as he was tall.

The choking dust all but smothered the flash of light as Sora summoned the Kingdom Key. The glowing eyes glanced at him curiously, causing the brunet to shrink slightly. Nevertheless, he swallowed hard and raised his weapon.

"A-Aeroga," he managed, his mouth as dry and sandy as the ground he stood on. A small hurricane whipped up, sweeping aside the hazy curtains of grit at his gesture, to reveal the creature that watched them from on high.

Riku immediately wished he hadn't.

It was a skeleton. Not a human one, that much was certain, but not of any kind of animal Riku had ever seen, either. Its torso was vaguely humanoid—if gigantic—in the shape of its ribs and the placement of its shoulders. Its bony arms were humanoid, too, up until the hands, which were clawed like a raptor's. Its head was something akin to what Riku imagined a dragon's skull to look like, all grinning fangs and stubs of bone where horns might have been. A mane of brown hair still clung to the base of its skull where its spinal column began, rippling as it moved. Any lower body it might have had was still buried in the sand, lost from just below its rib cage downwards. Hellish red lights burned in the pits of its empty eye sockets, now trained upon Sora.

Sora gulped again.

"Is that… Zant?" Kairi pointed upwards. Riku followed her finger, his mouth dropping open in surprise. His cousin appeared to be clinging to something protruding from the top of the beast's skull. A… sword…?

"That idiot," Riku growled. "He resurrected a monster."

"**Living ones**…" the voice boomed again, seeming to issue from between the skull's immobile jaws. "**I am reborn**…"

"We… We didn't mean to!" Sora squeaked out. "If you want, we could just take the sword out and you can go back to… whatever you were doing. No harm done… right?" His right hand began to glow.

"**Strange light**…" the beast's claws dropped to the sand on either side of its body, bracing it as it bent downwards, bringing its skull even closer to the terrified teenagers. Riku's hand, too, began to glow as the yellowed fangs approached biting proximity. Not that any of them would be more than a mouthful for the massive creature…

"I have heard of this being." Riku glanced behind them, almost startled to see the Lizalfos tribe gaping up at the skeleton in undisguised awe and fear. The Twili, too, were watching it. It was Nihip who had spoken. The sand had settled on his armor, dulling its shine and filling the slashes across it with packed dirt.

"It is called a Stallord, in your language," he continued. "A Skeleton Lord. It commands all lesser Stals."

"Stals?" Kairi repeated, only throwing a quick glance over her shoulder before returning her gaze to the so-called Stallord, unwilling to turn her back on it for any length of time.

"Revenants," Fren's voice answered. "Resurrected soldiers. There are many types. Stalchildren, Stalkins, Stalhounds and Stalfos, to name but a few. And the Stallord. There's only ever been one recorded sighting of a Stallord… since we left, anyway."

"We have not seen one for many centuries," Nihip confirmed. "Your kin has awakened a formidable power."

"That idiot…" Riku repeated, the words barely a whisper as the Stallord's red eyes fixed on him.

"**Strange light**…" it repeated. "**You are Mirrors**?"

"Um…" Riku shared a glance with his fellow 'Mirrors'. "Yeah. We are. If that makes you want to kill us any less."

"**Mirrors have come**… **I am reborn**…" the Stallord drew back to regard them from its lofty height. "**My children shall fight for you**."

"Th-They don't need to, really!" Sora hurried to deny, waving his hands frantically. "Really! This is a diplomatic mission! We're trying to negotiate a truce!"

"**Truce**…?" the skull tilted to the side. It would have been endearing, had the Stallord not been a gigantic, living skeleton able to flatten them all with a single swipe, with the lights of hell burning in its eyes and its voice shaking the ground beneath them.

"Yeah, a truce," Sora sighed in relief. The gigantic, living skeleton seemed to be getting it. "It's where you don't fight, okay? No fighting."

"**Fighting**…" the Skeleton Lord's skull righted itself. Its clawed hands spread out to either side of it, palms-up. "**My children shall fight for you**."

"N-No, see, what I just said was…!" Sora was cut off by a sudden rumbling beneath their feet. Riku scrambled upright, just now realizing that he'd still been lying on his back. The small army of Lizalfos took a collective, nervous step backwards.

The sand lumped and humped into a million and one tiny sand dunes that poured downwards to reveal a scene from a bad horror movie. And by 'bad', Riku meant 'fucking terrifying'.

A veritable sea of skeletons spread out before them, covering the desert with tarnished ivory and pinpoints of glowing red, like an ocean of burning coals. The majority of the skeletons were smaller than Kairi, with big, childish heads. These, according to Fren, were the Stalchildren. Behind them were more, slightly thinner ones with less bulky skulls that the Twili woman identified as Stalkins. The fewest in number but greatest in the 'fucking terrifying' factor were the Stalfos: dead warriors armed with swords and shields, random, rusted bits of armor still clinging to their frames here and there. Their heads lolled lifelessly, their eyes burning accusingly into Riku's. Gooseflesh rippled over every inch of his skin, all the way from his hairline to his toes. The Stallord lowered its arms and regarded the Keybladers silently.

"…Eep," Sora squeaked. The entire army of revenants snapped to focus on him. The boy wilted beneath their stare, beginning to back away towards the Lizalfos and relative safety. "Wh-What do they want?"

"The Stals are victims of the Hylian's prejudice as well," Nihip spoke. "Perhaps they, too, see _Ihhiauap _as their symbol of hope."

"Perhaps," Riku said, backing away alongside his friend. He was no coward, despite what the higher powers seemed to think, but even he knew when to face down an army of the living dead and when to retreat. "Or perhaps they want to tear us limb from limb and feed on our living flesh. Perhaps _that_."

"That, too, is a possibility," Nihip nodded.

"L-Look… Stallord," Sora fumbled. "We don't want to fight. Your children don't need to fight for us. Just go back under the sand, and we'll go our own way, okay?"

The Stallord regarded them emptily for a moment longer, before suddenly plunging forwards. A geyser of sand shot up, followed by a new sand dune as the huge skeleton plowed its way underground. The army of Stals remained where they were, seemingly unperturbed by their lord's abrupt departure.

"Zant!" Kairi gasped, running forward. Riku swore and ran after her, meaning to pull the girl away from the possibly hostile army of revenants, Sora hot on his heels. A few steps closer, though, and he saw what she was aiming for: a bluish figure sprawled atop the newly-formed dune, motionless.

Riku dropped to his knees beside his second cousin, reaching out to flip the prostrate Twili onto his back. He braced himself over the boy with his hands on either side of his body, leaning in closely to check if he was breathing. He was, though his eyes were shut and he still wasn't moving.

"Zant? Are you okay? Say something!" the silver-haired young man half-shouted. One yellow eye half-opened, moving to take in his cousin's position above him. Blue lips twitched.

"Be gentle. It's my first time."

"You…!" Riku drew back and shoved the boy back onto his face, livid. Zant's body shook with laughter, then with coughing as he hacked up all the sand he'd inhaled.

"We were worried about you," Kairi scolded. "You shouldn't joke."

"I'm not sorry," Zant spat out another mouthful of grit, levering himself up. "It was funny."

"Are you okay?" Sora repeated the query, hoping for a serious answer this time. Though if the way the Twili was laughing was any indication, he was just fine.

"I've probably swallowed half the desert, but other than that and a very sore arm, I'm fine," he pushed himself to his feet, trying vainly to brush the sand off of himself. "I let go of that sword embedded in its skull just as it dove downwards. That's probably the only reason I'm not literally six feet under right now. I've still got the other one, though," he added, holding it up to inspect it with pursed lips.

"Do us all a favor, and don't stick it in any more corpses, alright?" Riku sighed.

"Sora!" The call drew the teenagers' attention back to the waiting group. Fren continued loudly. "Shall we continue onwards? We're losing daylight."

"Yeah, let's keep going," Sora decided, dismissing his Keyblade. "With any luck, the Stals won't follow us. Their leader did leave, after all. They're probably just waiting for him to come back."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Come on, guys, let's keep going!" Riku said in a squeaky falsetto. "I'm sure they won't follow us! They're probably waiting for their leader!" Then, in his normal voice, "God, Sora, I am never listening to you again. Do they _look_ like they're waiting? _Do they_?!" He waved a stiff arm at the swarm of shuffling skeletons that was shuffling along not a few yards behind them. Ahead, the Lizalfos appeared to be walking backwards in their unwillingness to take their eyes off of their army's newest recruits.

"I said 'probably'!" Sora defended himself. "And I don't sound like that at all!"

"Don't you think," Riku continued as if he hadn't heard, "that the Hylians might be a _little_ concerned when we sweep down on their homeland with our undead horde? How well do you suppose _this_ diplomatic mission is going to turn out?"

"Fine, then," Sora snapped. "_You_ can go tell the Stallord he can't come." His just-as-stiff arm stabbed towards the giant skull, which was currently plowing through the sand behind them, looking like a massive polar bear swimming through water, except twenty times as creepy. "Go on, Riku, go tell him! We've been waiting for a volunteer for some time."

"He only listens to you," Riku reminded him. "And I think you've done enough damage talking to him."

"Why doesn't Zant just go over there and pull the magic sword out?" the Hero of Light wondered, glancing back at the skull again. The little sword poking out of its head was glowing slightly with an unholy purple light.

"Now that _you_ can volunteer for," Riku snorted. "_I'm_ not going over there and wrestling him hand-to-ginormous-crushing-bone-fangs."

"I'll pass…" Sora fidgeted nervously. "I'll just tell him to wait here when we reach the end of the desert."

"We'll see how that goes over," the taller boy muttered darkly. Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden flurry of footsteps running up behind them. Riku looked back, doing his first honest-to-God double-take.

Kairi pulled up beside them with a breathless laugh, her two new friends circling around them and kicking up sand. "Hi, guys!" she greeted. "What're you talking about?"

"Kairi…" Sora stared. "Are those… dog skeletons…?"

"More to the point," Riku added, "are you _playing_ with them?"

"Oh, yeah!" Kairi beamed widely. "I found these two wandering along with the Stals. They're really playful! Aren't you, girls? Aren't you?" She directed this last part to the frolicking dog skeletons, who rubbed up against her legs and wagged skeletal tails happily.

"Girls…?" Sora repeated weakly.

"They don't really have genders," Kairi shrugged, her hands absently rubbing the dogs' skulls. "So I call them girls. This one is Mango, and this one is Chutney. Aren't they cute?"

"Kairi," Riku felt compelled to point out, "they're _skeletons_."

"So?" she glared defiantly at him. "They're still dogs. Just look at those tails go! They're the most energetic little girls I've seen! Who's a good girl?" She, again, reverted to addressing her undead audience. The dogs yipped with nonexistent vocal chords and chased each other around their new friend, who clapped her hands and laughed in delight.

Riku and Sora shared a long, hard look.

"Mango and Chutney," Riku said.

"Do you think the heat's gotten to her?" Sora asked.

"Mango," Riku said, enunciating carefully, "and _Chutney_."

"…Has the heat gotten to _you_?" Sora lifted on eyebrow. Riku turned around so that he was walking backwards, spreading his arms and addressing the Stal army.

"I don't suppose any of you was a doctor when he was alive?" he shouted.

As one, every skull of every Stal tipped to the side and looked at Riku with empty, answerless red eyes. The silver-haired boy sighed.

"I didn't think so."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It didn't take long for Roxas to decide that he never, _ever_ wanted to be on the wrong side of Sheik's whip. The boy was positively _lethal_, not to mention the fact that he was still armed to the teeth with concealed throwing knives in addition to the spiked chain. And the fact that he'd trained for nearly seven years in hand-to-hand combat, too. And the fact that he was, apparently, a natural magician, as he had proven in just a few short hours of lessons ('lessons', that is, mostly consisting of murmured advice from Roxas and Axel, both of whom were standing safely out of the line of fire).

CRACK!

Yet another crack of Sheik's whip rebounded off of the castle walls, echoed by the smaller crack of forming ice. The whip coiled back to hiss around the Hero of Time's Nobody, who smirked at the now-frozen fountain before them. He drew his arm back once more to send the tip snapping towards the frozen water. There was another crack as it hit the ice, breaking it, and the flower of fire that bloomed from it quickly melted the rest of it. A third strike—this time straight upwards—called down an even louder CRACK of thunder as no less than three bolts of lightning slammed into the ground around him, throwing up clods of earth.

"Okay," Axel said, from his position halfway across the courtyard, "I would like to take this moment to apologize for all the times I've called you 'the ninja' in front of your boyfriend. And Hamlet, too."

"Damn, Sheik," Roxas clapped his friend on the shoulder, grinning widely. "Even my Somebody didn't get this good this fast. Are you on magic steroids or something?"

"I haven't the faintest idea what that means," Sheik told him, unable to hold back his own grin. He had taken to removing his hood on the castle grounds recently (much to Link's delight), since by that point nearly every guard in the castle had been briefed on the 'Nobody situation'. So far the worst any of them had gotten were some dirty looks from passing soldiers, but those may have had more to do with the fact that Sheik kept accidentally warping into random rooms of the castle (i.e. the barracks, the outhouses, the treasury, and, on one notable occasion, the Princess's private apartments) than any prejudice on their part. Of course, anyone with a mind to do more than give them dirty looks was generally discouraged by the crazy-looking pyro that followed Roxas around and the scowling, walking-arsenal that followed Sheik.

"I knew you'd be great at it," Link, who had met the Nobody group at the castle's gates, having just returned from a job himself, interposed himself between the two of them, matching Sheik's grin with his own and slinging his arm around his Nobody's shoulder. Roxas rolled his eyes but backed off good-naturedly. He couldn't wait for one of them to just wake up and smell the pheromones already. Maybe then they'd tone down on the unconscious jealousy thing.

"Thank you. I believe my proficiency with magic is another side-effect of having housed the Princess for seven years," Sheik theorized. "She is an accomplished magician in her own right."

"Yeah, she's… something, alright," Link sighed, dropping his arm, his grin faltering for a moment. He hitched it back up and changed the subject, his tone bright and upbeat. "So! I saw you use Blizzard, Fire, and Thunder, but what about those other ones? What were they again?"

Sheik's grin grew wicked, his arm lifting so that his whip slithered around their feet. A small flick sent the tip curling around Link's ankle, too lightly for him to notice through his thick boots.

"Stop," Sheik said. Link's grin literally froze on his face, a halo of geometric symbols appearing around his head, holding him immobile. Another flick sent the whip curling back on itself, coiling around his other ankle, tighter this time.

"Gravity," the red-eyed youth smirked. The Link-statue toppled backwards, slamming to the ground under the pressure of a purple-black aura that appeared above him, pressing him into the dirt. A third flick wrapped Sheik's whip around Link's wrist.

"Aero." A cushion of air spun to life around the Link-statue, lifting him up off the ground and sliding him across the courtyard. Sheik's whip stretched out between them, like a rope tethering a boat to its dock.

"Magnet," Sheik said, tugging the whip slightly. The protective winds dissipated, though Link still slid back towards the braided Nobody as quickly as he had left. A final yank of the whip brought the still-immobile Link upright once more, just in time for Sheik's final spell.

"And Cure," he smiled. The halo of symbols disappeared from around Link's head, allowing him to stagger back a step, sucking in a delayed breath of shock. Roxas, Axel, and Tetra, in the background, all immediately tried to hide the fact that they'd been snickering wildly throughout the whole performance.

"And that's all of them I know," Sheik finished innocently, his whip slinking behind his legs like a furtive dog, belying its master's guileless smile.

"That was…" Link began, looking as if he couldn't decide between blowing up in anger or breaking down in laughter. In the end, he didn't get a chance to do either, for at that moment, a Gerudo woman burst into the courtyard. This was a very impressive feat on her part, since there was no door for her to slam open (the gate was already swinging in the breeze behind the Nobody brigade), no horse for her to rein in neighing and bucking (she was on foot), and she wasn't even wearing any boots to clatter against the cobblestones (her feet were shod in silk slippers, and made virtually no noise as she ran). Still, burst in she did, sweating and panting and looking around her wildly.

"Nasuerah!" Tetra recognized the Gerudo and hailed her, looking concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Tetra!" the warrior girl ran forward, latching onto her sister-in-arms' elbow, looking frantic. "I need to speak with the Sages. Urgently!"

"What's wrong?" Link asked, authority ringing in his voice. Nasuerah seemed to recognize it, or him, and turned to him desperately.

"An army's been spotted on the march out of the Gerudo Desert," she gabbled out. "At its head are two children answering to the description of the Mirror Triforce-bearers."

There was a stunned silence, but only for a single heartbeat before Link whirled towards the castle. He set off at a flat-out sprint, closely pursued by Nasuerah and Tetra, with Axel, Roxas, and Sheik bringing up the rear. The half-dozen teenagers pelted through the echoing stone corridors of Hyrule castle, blowing past courtiers and servants alike (with shouted apologies over his shoulder on Roxas's part). In a matter of minutes, they arrived, huffing and blowing, at the war room where Link knew Zelda to be in a meeting with the other Sages, working out the finer points of their battle strategy; they had given up meeting in the Sacred Realm after the negotiations with Ganondorf in case a crisis arose and they were needed quickly.

This was a crisis, if Link was any judge. A single glare from him sent the door's guards packing, recognizing the Hero of Time's glower as one that said he was not to be challenged now. They, too, could recognize a crisis when they saw one.

The war room's door banged open loudly, allowing the teenagers to burst in (properly, this time, their shoes clattering on the stone floors and their mouths panting loudly for breath). The Sages, arranged around a round table upon which several maps of Hyrule Field were spread, looked up in shock. Zelda flew to her feet the instant she saw the look on Link's face, her own expression grave.

"What is the matter?"

"Trouble," Link said seriously, moving aside so that Nasuerah could approach. Now Nabooru joined Zelda on her feet, looking more startled than grave.

"Nasuerah? What is it? Did something happen at the base?"

"Worse," Nasuerah panted. "Our scouts spotted… an army moving through the desert… my Lady. It is being led by… the Mirror Triforce-bearers described to us by… the Hylian scouts, as well as… one other girl we believe to be… the third bearer. My Lady."

"You're sure of this?" Nabooru's voice was sharp. Nasuerah opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by the large brown… _thing_ in the corner that Roxas had no name for. He vaguely thought Sheik (or Link) might have told him it was a… Goron. Yes, that was it. The Goron leader, Darunia.

"For heaven's sake, sister!" he boomed. "Let the child catch her breath before you interrogate her!"

"That's alright, Sir," Nasruerah shook her head, her breathing calming somewhat. "I am fine."

"Link," Zelda said. The Hero of Time snapped to attention.

"Yes, Your Highness?"

Zelda didn't even protest the title, a measure of how serious the situation was. "Go find the captain of the guard. Tell him to mobilize his troops immediately as per his previous orders."

"Yes, Your Highness," Link bowed shortly and fled the room, his footsteps echoing long after he had gone from sight. The Goron Darunia shared a glance with the fish-girl, or Zora, Roxas had heard them called, Ruto. They nodded at each other.

"We, too, must go assemble our warriors as quickly as possible," the Zora Princess spoke.

"Go, then," Zelda nodded to them. "I shall send a messenger with the details as soon as I have them myself." With a final nod of respect to the gathered Sages, the Goron and the Zora disappeared in flashes of red and blue light.

"Ganondorf has already begun to mobilize our forces, my Lady," Nasuerah told Nabooru, who didn't look very reassured, but nodded anyway.

"Very well, then."

"Nasuerah," Zelda caught the Gerudo messenger's attention, her tone soothing. "I need you to tell us about their forces in as much detail as you can remember. How many were there?"

"And what kind?" the silver-haired woman, Impa, spoke up.

To everyone's surprise, the question made Nasuerah burst into high-pitched, slightly hysterical giggles.

"Perhaps you should retake your seats, my Ladies," she shook her head, still laughing. "You're not going to believe this at all…"


	19. 18: Let's Try This Again, Shall We?

**Kitty: Not much to say. School's started, which is why this chapter is so late.**

**Axel: She hasn't got enough time to own Legend of Zelda or Kingdom Hearts. She barely had enough time to **_**play**_** them.**

**Kitty: Yeah. Enjoy.**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XVIII**

**Let's Try This Again, Shall We?**

"_I don't doubt that he can do it, I doubt that I want him to do it."_

"_Why?"_

"_Well, you know what, Andy? You're not the most diplomatic of individuals."_

"_That's bullshit!"_

—_Church and Andy the Bomb, 'Red vs. Blue'_

"I _told_ you so."

"I know. I know you told me so. You were right. Are you happy now, Riku?"

"Not particularly. Me being right doesn't make the retaliatory army go away."

"I'm glad you realize that."

"Give it a rest, you two," Kairi broke into the boys' bickering tiredly. She'd been listening to them argue all day long, ever since they'd entered Hyrule Field. Her ears were almost as sore as her fatigued feet and sunburned shoulders. Not even her constant companions Mango and Chutney could cure the impending migraine she could feel chipping away at the last of her sanity.

The skeletal dogs whined and rubbed against her calves. She offered them a small smile and a few pats. Encouraged, the Stalhounds set off after a passing rabbit, barking happily. As Kairi turned her head to watch them go, she caught sight of something much, much larger just behind them. She sighed heavily.

True to Riku's prediction, the Stallord had not agreed to wait by the edge of the desert. Nor, it seemed, was he able to tunnel through the packed earth of the grassland. The teens had soon learned that he did, in fact, posses a lower body beneath all that sand, and that it was actually more similar to the hip- and leg-bones of the Stalhounds than the Stalfos. So now the Skeleton Lord tramped along at the rear of their accidentally-reanimated army on four clawed feet, its long bone tail whipping dangerously from side to side behind him.

Zant, with what Riku had called his usual good sense, had spent the night next to the Stallord's head, apparently conversing with him. The two had… bonded, so to speak. Which was how Zant had come to be riding atop the skull's… skull when they first entered the Field early that morning. He was the one who had spotted the army of Hylian footsoldiers awaiting them outside the walls of Hyrule Castle and reported it back to the leaders of the formerly-diplomatic mission. This army was the spark for an argument between Sora and Riku that had lasted well into the morning, and had eventually evolved into a childish match of sarcastic comebacks rather than anything remotely productive.

And the Lizalfos were still walking backwards.

"Mirrors!" The three young people turned to see Fren, Nihip, and Yeeap approaching. Riku quirked a quizzical eyebrow.

"Been talking to the Stallord, have you?"

"We decided that it was a fitting title of respect," Fren explained. "'Mirror Triforce-bearers' is a bit of a mouthful."

"I guess," he shrugged.

"So what's up?" Sora asked.

"Clearly, the Hylians are less than pleased with our entourage," Nihip began, flicking his tongue at Zant's steed.

"Sorry," Sora shrugged helplessly, "but I asked, and they aren't leaving. I can't do anything to make them, obviously."

"We realize this," Nihip's tone was not reproving, but the blue-eyed boy felt somehow chastened anyway. "My query to you was what our next action will be, now that they are expecting us, albeit not in the way we might have hoped."

"No, no, this is perfect," Sora shook his head. "See, this way we can show them just how prejudiced they are! They got all ready for a war just seeing the Stals, without even knowing what they wanted. It's a perfect example."

"I don't know," Kairi was doubtful. "I think I would have slapped together some sort of defensive action if I saw a thousand living corpses coming through the desert towards me."

"Yeah, you might want to rethink your strategy on that one, Patton," Riku agreed. Sora blew out his cheeks and pouted.

"Fine, then. You think of something."

"I think it would be prudent to send out a small advance guard," Fren stated her own opinion, "under a flag of truce. When they send out their own representatives, we may speak with them and clear up this misunderstanding with the Stals. Then the negotiations may proceed in peace."

"That'll work," Sora lit up with relief, glad that somebody, at least, had some helpful input. "Okay, so obviously Riku, Kairi, and I will go for our side. Fren, you can come along, too, and maybe Yeeap and Nihip?"

"We shall remain behind," Nihip shook his head. "It would not be wise to send the very enemies they fear until they realize we are here for peace, not war."

"I, also, must remain behind," Fren said regretfully.

"Okay," Sora blinked. "If you say so…"

"I get you two not going," Riku nodded to the Lizalfos, who blinked back. "But why don't you come, Fren? They can't be scared of you."

"That is not the problem," the Twili captain shifted uncomfortably. "The problem is that I am not the highest-ranking Twili in attendance. As one in line for the throne, Prince Zant…"

"Oh, no," Riku's eyebrows snapped downwards, his mouth tugging into a scowl. "Zant is the _last_ person we need on our side if our goal is to make them want to make peace with us."

"You doubt Prince Zant's diplomatic skills?" Fren tried and failed to hide a smile.

"I doubt Prince Zant's _people_ skills, is what I doubt," Riku glanced back at the small figure atop the Stallord's skull. "He'll call their King a filthy Light-Dweller and that's that. No more negotiations."

"You forget that His Highness has been raised among courtiers," the Twili woman said. "He knows how to be charming and likeable when he wishes to be." Kairi, in the background, burst into snorting giggles. "He _does_. He merely needles you, sir, because he knows that he can get away with it. Though," she added thoughtfully, "technically you three all outrank him."

"Well, that would have been nice to know earlier," Riku sighed. "Alright, fine. We take His Royal Asswipe, too. That makes four of us. How many of them do you think there will be?"

"The Hylian Princess will almost certainly be there," Nihip jumped in, more knowledgeable in this area than the exiled woman. "She is their leader, not a King. The so-called Hero will be, too." Behind him, Chief Yeeap gave a strangled yap of anger.

"Who's that?" Sora wanted to know.

"The Hero of Time," Nihip spat, "is their beloved 'savoir'. He has killed more of our kind than any man alive today, though he claims to stand for peace and equality. In any case, if he is not there, I will resign my place as Lieutenant. There should also be three or four of their Sages present. All in all, I believe there will be about five, six at most."

"In that case, Fren, you can come, too," Riku decided, having taken over the tactical planning from a clueless Sora. "We'll still be at a disadvantage, but hopefully that will just make them realize that we're not here to fight. Oh, and Fren? I think that you should probably be the one to introduce us. I still have no idea what anyone's title is."

"Very well," Fren nodded deeply, as close to a bow as she could get while still walking. "I shall go inform Prince Zant of our strategy." The white-skinned Twili dropped back, nudging her way through a crowd of jumpy Lizalfos until she reached the Stals, who parted to let her pass unhindered. Riku watched her until she vanished among the skeletal soldiers. Sora noticed his gaze and grinned impishly, elbowing his taller friend in the side.

"Getting a liking for the natives?" he smirked, waggling his eyebrows ridiculously. "I didn't know you liked older women, Ri-ku~!"

"Wh-Wha—?" Riku turned back, blinking a few times before the jibe registered. When it did, blood rose in his face as visibly as mercury in a thermometer. "Sh-Shut up, Sora! I swear, you've been hanging out with Tidus for _way _too long!"

"I actually haven't seen him in weeks," Sora's mood abruptly plummeted at the mention of his friend, homesickness coloring his voice. "We've been in that desert, on this world, for forever. When do you think we'll finally get to go home?"

"Not before we cross the desert again to get back to the Gummi Ship," Riku quipped. The attempt at humor fell flat, as was made obvious by Sora's downcast face. The silver-haired boy sighed audibly, looking away as well. "…I don't know when we'll get back, Sora. I'll tell you what: if this whole negotiation thing lasts more than a few days, we'll march right back into that desert and blast off for home, okay? They can finish their own peace treaty on their own; we just have to start it off for them. I promise we'll get home soon."

"I know we will," Sora agreed, his faith in Riku strengthening his voice as he repeated. "Of course we will!" His voice descended back into melancholy, though this time it was clearly comedic. "And then Tidus and I will live in our parents' basements and help each other cheat on online college courses until one of us gets a job as a garbage man. You'll send us money once you become a world-renowned doctor, right?"

"Idiot," Riku scoffed. "I'm not going to become a doctor. Obviously my future career is as an electrician."

"…An electrician?" Sora repeated, his mouth twitching uncontrollably. Riku nodded, having trouble keeping a straight face himself.

"Of course. I managed to eradicate every last bit of darkness in Castle Oblivion, didn't I?" There was a single beat of silence before both boys burst out in howling laughter, bending over and clutching their sides.

"M-Maybe… Maybe joining G-_Ghostbusters _is more up your alley," Sora chortled.

"And you… you could be a police officer," Riku suggested between chuckles, "and save the world… one organized crime syndicate at a time!"

Kairi glanced between her two best friend in the entire multiverse—both of whom were sniggering like demented hyenas—and rolled her eyes to the sky, wandering off to play with her reanimated pets. She had a feeling she'd find more meaningful conversation with them than with those two. They were only teenage boys, after all.

She smiled fondly and laughed a bit herself. Only teenage boys.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The room was probably a ballroom of some sort. It was easy to imagine couples dressed in silk and velvet whirling together across the polished floors that reflected the firefly lights of the massive crystal chandeliers above, while the music from the band on the dais drifted in enchanting strains above them all. Now, though, it was abandoned. Not quite derelict, per se, but it had obviously been quite some time since any shoes polished the floors, or any fireflies alit upon the crystal teardrops far above. Dust motes were the only dancers in this ballroom, twirling together in the sunbeams that poured in through the large, diamond-paned windows that lined the outside wall. Velvet waterfalls of curtains to either side of these windows offered the tired dancers refuge, coating them thickly with fuzzy coats of gray.

Of course, since the room had not seen use in quite some time, the curtains had not been left pulled back so, nor had the dust had any reason to dance prior to that particular moment. This flurry of activity had come about as a direct result of the white and black-clad boy who had thrown the curtains aside, letting in the light he needed to work.

That same boy was now hunched over his work, his legs hanging off the side of the dais and his eyebrows drawn together. The curved board had smoothed beneath his hands, four notches on its underside taking shape. Now he inserted two rods between these notches, affixing carved knobs of wood to either end of the rods with pilfered mortar (the best adhesive he could find) and whispered magic.

Footsteps rang out along the polished expanse of marble floors, echoing through the room like specters of the enchanting strains of music. Dust mote flowers bloomed in the wake of the footsteps' owner, curling up to watch her pass. The girl made her way over to the boy on the dais, hopping up to sit beside him and leaning over to peer at what he was creating.

"What is that?" her voice stilled the motes, an even stronger echo of the music than her footsteps had been.

"A skateboard," the boy's voice was a singsong tenor, a compliment to her light soprano. "What are you doing here? Aren't you participating in the battle?"

"Oh, no, not me," the girl giggled, her green bob bouncing with her brisk shake of the head. "We Kokiri don't fight. There aren't enough of us to waste on wars that seem trivial two months after they're finished. And anyway, most of us can't leave the forest to begin with."

"Then shouldn't you be with that other Sage… Rauru?" the boy finally looked at her, his blue eyes piercing. "He's not fighting either."

"No," she agreed. "Neither is Impa. The two of them are watching the battle from the Sacred Realm, to keep an eye on our sisters and brother, and so they can use their powers to help if they have to."

"Again, shouldn't you be with them?" he persisted.

"I don't want to watch people dying," the girl made a face. "It's childish, but I'm technically still a child. If I don't see it happen, it's like it never did. Right, Roxas?"

"You don't have to condescend to me," Roxas grumbled, fastening his gaze on the wooden axels of his homemade skateboard. "I know that everyone thinks I'm a coward for not going myself."

"I'm not them. Maybe they do," the girl shrugged. "But I wasn't condescending to you, just trying to make myself feel a little better with some self-depreciation."

"Was I supposed to tell you that you aren't being childish at all, even though you are?" Roxas half-smiled, still not looking at her. The girl laughed lightly, her voice like the crystal chandeliers raining down.

"Something like that. It's nice to know that at least someone in this castle says what they think and not what you want to hear," she looked at him sideways. "With that in mind, why _didn't_ you go out with all your friends? It will be very lonely, waiting here for them to come back all by yourself."

"You're with me, so I'm not alone," Roxas corrected, leaning back on his arms to gaze at the frozen crystal raindrops.

"True," she agreed, and didn't press for an answer to her question. Roxas sighed and gave in to the silent interrogation.

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm not a hero. I don't want to be a hero. Link fits that bill just fine. _He_ can go out and fight for other peoples' wars. But me, I'm a simple guy. If it has nothing to do with me, I'm not going to stick my nose into it. I just agreed to be a mediator, not to fight. Not to die someone else's hero."

"This is about that other hero, isn't it? That Hero of Light of yours," the girl guessed correctly. "He would want to be a part of this battle, then?"

"He would be _leading_ this battle," Roxas snorted. "Liberating the people from their enemies and all that. I'm not like him. I _won't _be like him."

"You know," the girl said softly, also looking up at the ceiling, its painted cherubs refracted through so many bits of crystal that they became deformed devils, monsters to be feared, "doing what others think is right isn't exclusive of being yourself. Even if your worst enemy thinks that something is right… that doesn't necessarily make the thing wrong, just because your worst enemy thought it. What matters is less what they think and more what you do."

"If doing the wrong thing means that I can be my own person," Roxas whispered to those creatures, created as angels yet seen as devils, "then I'll gladly be wrong."

"Will you really?" the girl's question drifted like the dust motes weaving between the sunbeams, sometimes seen with sharp clarity, and sometimes fading back into the shadows of the velvet waterfalls.

Roxas didn't answer.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"They have a flag of truce, Your Highness," the scout lowered his spy-glass and turned to his Princess, mounted on a white steed beside him.

"That they do," Zelda nodded. She, in turn, turned to Link, mounted on Epona on her other side. "What do you think, Link?"

"I don't trust it," he said, his long nose wrinkled with indecision. "But I don't think it would be smart to ignore the chance to talk things out peacefully."

"If that is even possible," Sheik put in from his position in the saddle behind Link.

"Your negotiations with me turned out nicely in your favor," Ganondorf, on a black steed on Link's other side, said with an ingratiating smile. "If you can come to a bloodless agreement with one of your kingdom's worst enemies, why not another?"

"Pah," Axel snorted from his place on foot between Epona and Neptune—Zelda's white charger. "I came here for a battle, not a board meeting! Where's the chaos, the violence?"

"Well, I say we do it," Tetra, who was at the head of the Gerudo footsoldiers arranged behind Ganondorf, jutted her chin stubbornly. "What could it hurt?"

"What, indeed?" Zelda sighed slightly, straightening up in her saddle. She turned to the scout at her left. "Sound the call for a truce. Link, Tetra, Ganondorf, Sheik, and I shall go forward beneath our own flag to speak with their representatives." The scout, who doubled as a bugler, nodded and brought his trumpet to his lips, blowing out a few sharp blasts. Sheik—who had discarded his black coat in favor of his usual exoskeleton—pulled off his turban and handed it to Tetra, who tied the white cloth around the end of her weapon and hoisted it high. The Princess, meanwhile, turned to the redheaded Nobody looking at her curiously, having noticed his exclusion.

"I thought I was here in the capacity of the ruler of the Nobodies," Axel said, crossing his arms and raising one eyebrow.

"You are; however, I notice that your subjects are sadly lacking in, shall we say, _presence_," Zelda said loftily. Axel chuckled.

"Fair enough. So this is a commanders-only mission, is it?"

"It is. I am sorry to have to add that your diplomacy leaves something to be desired, and that it would be unwise to bring a warmonger to what might turn out to be peace talks," she said regretfully. Axel shrugged.

"Again, fair enough. I'll wait here for the fighting to start, then. I'd hate for this to all turn out to be a waste of my time."

"That," Zelda smirked, "would be a terrible tragedy for us all, I'm sure."

As one, Neptune, Epona, and Loki—Ganondorf's horse—stepped forward at their riders' urging, setting a stately pace for their approach through the wide swath of empty grassland between the Hylian and Gerudo footsoldiers and the army of Stalfos. Tetra had swung herself up behind her Somebody, the better to hold up her makeshift banner of truce. It was a consolation to her to see that the opposing party's flag was just as slapdash as hers: somebody's white vest skewered atop somebody else's sword waving slightly in the wind.

Zelda pulled her mount to a halt several yards away from the group to size them up with a practiced eye. She had been warned of the Mirror Triforce-bearers' youth, but even with the warning she was caught slightly off-guard by how harmless they appeared.

The boy in front looked just a little younger than she herself, his face slightly round and his eyes big and blue and guileless. His open face was slightly off-put by his strange all-black garb, crossed here and there with straps that made it look just a bit more like battle armor. To his right was a taller, paler boy with silver hair that cascaded down his back and obscured most of his face. His clothes reminded her strongly of Roxas's, what with his baggy pants and sleeveless black zip-up shirt. It was more than likely his vest atop their 'flagpole'. To the brunet's left was a young girl with red hair and a scandalously skimpy pink dress that was half-cloth and half-metal zippers, creating another battle-armor feel. These, Zelda thought, were her country's long-feared foes: the Mirror-Triforce bearers.

But they were not alone. Holding the banner behind the silver-haired boy was a creature Zelda had never before seen the like of. It was blue-skinned and humanoid, clad in what looked like an older model of Sheik's exoskeleton and decorated with the same markings as Axel. Beside it was a taller, more feminine creature of the same species, with white skin and no facial markings. To either side of the pink-clad girl sat two Stalhounds, standing sentinel for their mistress.

All of these people were on foot, making it exceedingly easy for Zelda to look down her nose at them in a superior way, though she was inwardly delighted. Already she had the psychological upper hand. That was a very promising start.

"Welcome, honored representatives," the white-skinned female creature stepped forward and bowed, raising her voice slightly to cross the gap between them. "May I present to you our exalted leaders: Mirror Sora Osment of Destiny Islands, Mirror Riku Gallagher of Destiny Islands, Mirror Kairi Panettiere of Destiny Islands, and His Highness, the Twilight Prince Zant, of the Twilight Realm."

"You left yourself out of that introduction," Zelda noted coolly. The woman smiled, straightening.

"Forgive my lapse, Lady. I am Sir Fren of the Twilight Realm, Captain of His Highness's personal Twili guard," she introduced herself.

"Is that your people? The Twili?"

"Even so, Lady."

"In the face of such politeness," Zelda offered a tiny smile, "it would be rude not to return the favor. I am the Crown Princess Zelda Hyrule of Hyrule Kingdom, bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom. With me is Sir Link of Hyrule, the Hero of Time and bearer of the Triforce of Courage and the former King Ganondorf of the Gerudo tribe, bearer of the Triforce of Power."

"Well met, all," Fren bowed again. "Though I notice that you, too, have seen fit to omit certain personages from your introduction, Your Highness."

"Then you must forgive _my _lapse, Captain," the Princess inclined her head. "Also in attendance are Tetra of the Gerudo tribe and Sheik of Hyrule Kingdom, mine and Sir Link's advisors. Forgive me if I am in error, but is not Mirror Sora Osment of Destiny Islands your appointed leader? Can he not speak for himself?"

"I can speak for myself," the boy's hoarse baritone shot across the space between them like the cry of a petulant child. Oddly, Zelda noticed a wince cross the faces of his fellow Mirrors, as they had introduced themselves, when he spoke. A moment later, she discovered why. "I haven't had any diplomatic training. We didn't want to offend you before we'd even started to talk. Your Highness," he added belatedly. Zelda didn't turn her head, but she could have sworn that she heard a muffled snicker from either Link or Sheik to her right. She _knew_ she heard one from Tetra behind her.

"Your concern is appreciated," Ganondorf slid in smoothly, despite Link's glare. "Though by my reckoning, we have not yet begun to talk. On what subject do you wish us to speak?"

"We have come to apologize for this misunderstanding between our people, Your Highness," the blue-skinned boy introduced as Prince Zant spoke up, addressing Zelda rather than Ganondorf, presumably to avoid the potential quagmire of his title as a 'former' king.

"There has been no misunderstanding to my knowledge, _Your Highness_," she said stiffly. "Would you care to elaborate on this matter?"

"We didn't come to fight," Mirror Sora said, his bluntness inciting no snickers this time from his audience. "That's the misunderstanding."

"In that case, we do indeed have a grave misunderstanding," Zelda's tone grew cold. "I was under the apparently mistaken impression that you had marched across Hyrule's borders with a hostile army. Perhaps you can tell me what your true purpose is, then, if not war."

"Just because you see an army behind us doesn't mean it's ours," Mirror Sora propped his fists on his hips. Zelda blinked, slightly in awe of the teenaged boy's immaturity in the face of possible war. This, she realized slowly, must be Naïveté. He certainly fit the bill. And it made sense that the Triforce's ancient foes would be led by her counterpart.

"Do you mean to say that a thousand or so Stals and a few hundred Lizalfos just happened to _follow_ you into our kingdom?" Link demanded harshly, disbelievingly. The holder of the Mirror Triforce of Naïveté glared back.

"I didn't say that. I said they aren't our army. They're our followers," Mirror Sora rebutted. "They followed us here in the hopes that we would negotiate peace between them and Hyrule."

"Stals want peace with Hyrule?" Link snorted. "Not damn likely."

"Link," Zelda quelled him with a word.

"I can't speak for the Stals," Sora glanced twitchily over his shoulder at the distant figure of the army behind him. "They really did just decide to follow us here, whether you believe that or not. But the Lizalfos and the Twili want peace."

"Who are these Twili, and what peace do they want with us?" Ganondorf asked. "I have never seen nor heard of their people, and yet they claim that we are hostile to them?"

"Not exactly," Prince Zant said. "I don't expect you to have heard of us; many centuries have passed since we last inhabited the Realm of Light. You might have heard stories of us, however. Judging by your advisor's clothing, somehow our race continued in this Realm after our exile." He nodded towards Sheik, who looked puzzled. Zelda, however, barely withheld a gasp of realization.

"The exiled Sheikah," she said. "I _have_ heard stories. They say you sinned against the Goddesses and were cast into an eternal twilight for it, forever to regret what you had done."

"Now _that_ was diplomatic," Mirror Sora snorted. His mirth was cut off by Mirror Riku's elbow colliding with his ribs.

"Shut up, moron," he hissed. The brunet drew back, rubbing his side, and obeyed.

"Some of us sinned, yes, and were duly punished for it," Prince Zant acknowledged. "But some of us had done nothing wrong, and yet were cast out of our homes for it, warped by the Twilight into the creatures you see before you. Some of us were born into this limbo, this punishment, for no crime of our own. Even should we remain exiled from Hyrule, we ask to be allowed back into the Realm of Light. Surely the passed centuries have been punishment enough? Surely the twisted monsters our bodies have become are adequate retribution?"

"You said," Sheik spoke, "that some of you had been born into this Twilight Realm. You look young enough to be one of those people yourself, correct?"

"I am," Zant nodded.

"Then why do you long for a home you never knew, a body you never possessed?" the Nobody reasoned. "In time, your own children shall grow up in your kingdom and have children of their own, and no one shall ever miss something they do not know could have been theirs."

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, sir advisor," Prince Zant clenched his teeth, his voice rising passionately. "You cannot understand, having never been to the Twilight Realm yourself. Though I was born there, now that I have had a taste of your Realm, I see what could have been. My home is a prison, a hellish limbo of nothingness. Do you fault me for dreaming of sunshine on my face and wind on my skin, of grass beneath my feet and land as far as the eye can see, rather than that wasted castle? And contrary to your words, my children's children shall not grow up contentedly, but it is doubtful that they shall even exist. Our race is dying of longing for the sun. There were few of us to begin with, but by and by we shall disappear entirely. What monarch would not wish to save his people?"

"Easy, cousin," Mirror Riku murmured almost inaudibly. The Twili Prince took a breath through his nose and fell silent, though not without one final comment.

"Surely you must understand, sir advisor. Your parents, or grandparents, must have been refugees that fled from our so-called 'Realm'."

"Alas, no," Sheik denied, shaking his head. "Though I dress in the manner of the now-extinct Sheikah, I am not one of them." He combed a brown hand through his blond hair as proof. "I am no example to further your cause. In fact, a good friend of mine once told me a story about a boy who wished to escape from a world that was too small for his tastes, and wound up nearly destroying all that he held dear."

"I am not that boy," Prince Zant said. Behind him, the three Mirrors exchanged wide-eyed glances, for no reason that Zelda could discern.

"Be that as it may," the Princess finally spoke. "It is not our place, not even the Sages' place, to contradict the will of the Goddesses. We do not intend to make enemies of your people, Prince Zant. When you speak of being punished for crimes you did not commit, remember that your exile took place long before my _grand_father's time."

"So you would spurn our hand of friendship because of an ancient wrong you can no longer even remember? Is that truly _wise_?" Zant's tone was colored with anger now. The Twili Captain put a calming hand on his shoulder, but he took no notice of it.

"If it was the Goddesses' will, I would," Zelda glared. "And I need no help from my Triforce to know that going against them would be the unwise decision."

"They aren't asking the Goddesses, they're asking _you_!" Sora burst out, evidently angered. A dark insignia on the back of his hand began to glow. "The Goddesses chose _you_ to represent them, so start doing what _you _think is wise and not what you think _they_ think!"

"Sora, shut _up_!" Mirror Riku insisted. "You're not helping by insulting their religion!"

"Indeed," Zelda's voice was tight.

"What about the Lizalfos?" Sora continued, heedlessly. "Are you going to reject their offer of peace, too, because your ancestors didn't like them?"

"The Lizalfos aren't capable of making peace," Tetra spoke up for the first time, every inch a Gerudo tribeswoman. "They're brutal and barbaric. Their whole culture is about making war! You can't make peace with that."

"Have you tried?" the pink-clad girl, Mirror Kairi Panettiere of Destiny Islands, demanded loudly, just as angry as her compatriot. "Chief Yeeap was too afraid to come talk to you with us because he thought you'd attack him, even under a flag of truce."

"Kairi…" Riku tried, weakly. His own symbol began to glow.

"…is right," the Mirror of Naïveté finished for him, causing the girl's hand to glow. "Look at us," Sora spread his arms. "You thought we were supposed to be some legendary monsters, right? Well, here we are trying to negotiate with you. Will you reject us based on what you've heard and not what your own eyes are telling you?"

"My own eyes tell me," Ganondorf said, "that you killed the Princess's scout, whose orders were to peacefully assess the situation."

"They attacked us first!" Sora protested.

"My own eyes tell me," the former king continued as if he hadn't spoken, "that you bring an army of sorcerously reanimated corpses to threaten us in our own homes while you claim to talk of peace."

"I told you, they're not…!"

"My own eyes tell me," Ganondorf overrode him, "that your chosen representatives are sinners rejected by the Goddesses, a childish boy who cannot even show the respect due his elders, a sniveling half-breed whose height belies the breadth of his obvious cowardice, and a shrieking fishwife dressed like a common harlot."

The girl jerked back as if slapped, reeling in shock from the insult. Her two companions, however, were not so afflicted. And Zelda did not mean the human ones. Her Stalhounds leaped to their bony paws, pacing between their mistress and her aggressors, growling like the rabid beasts they were. Epona, quite used to such animals and her master's usual response to them, reared up on her hind legs, lashing out at the skeletons with her hooves.

"Leave my dogs alone!" Kairi leaped forward, a halo of light blazing around her hand. Link's sword sang from its sheath, arcing down to meet her weapon with a clash of steel. The light cleared to reveal what appeared to be an outsized key with a sword's handle, its 'blade' decorated with wrought-metal flowers painted in bright colors. As feminine a weapon as it was, it was obviously (by the nature of its summoning) magical, and therefore dangerous.

The sudden outbreak of violence had a profound affect on the watching audiences. The two male Mirrors cried out in surprise and summoned their own keylike weapons (one plain silver and gold, the other decorated with the wings of angels and devils) to defend their fellow. The Twili drew back, as if to distance themselves from the lapse in diplomacy. All hands clenched upon their weapons.

And in the distance, a roar rose up from the army of Stals as they began to charge.


	20. 19: The Wait Is Over

**Kitty: This chapter is dedicated to my awesome big brother, who pretty much choreographed every fight in this fic. Short as they are, they would have sucked much more if he hadn't helped. And I had to do some serious wrangling to keep him from finding out it was a yaoi fic (it's not that he's a homophobe, he just finds it… weird. And doesn't know that I'm into it. ^^") Anyway, here's to him!**

**Axel: That's nice and all, but since you don't own the Legend of Zelda OR Kingdom Hearts, it doesn't surprise me that you don't even own your own fight scenes.**

**Kitty: Gee, thanks. Anyway, enjoy this chapter! Sorry for the wait!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XIX**

**The Wait is Over**

"_Back off—I'll take you on_

_Headstrong, to take on anyone_

_I know that you are wrong_

_And this is not where you belong."_

—_Trapt, 'Headstrong'_

The Hylian representatives wheeled their mounts around and galloped back towards their army hurriedly. If the Stal army caught up to them while they were still separated from their troops, they'd be overwhelmed and slaughtered within moments. The mistrustful distance they had kept between them and the Mirrors' representatives now saved them as the five young warriors gave chase, leading their army in the attack. (No one could hear Sora's cries of 'wait, come back' or Riku's shouted 'stop charging, you brain-dead idiots' over the Stals' roars.) So it was that when they reached their soldiers, they had a few moments for Tetra and Sheik to dismount as they all turned to face the enemy before they hit.

It was like a wave crashing against a rock. The footsoldiers held firm against the charge, their front line unbroken as the Stals pressed forward. The air rang with the cries of the living, the dead, and those now in between. The Lizalfos added their own yips to the mix, and the Stallord's roar shook the earth.

Meanwhile, Riku was using every ounce of his skill as a warrior to try and keep Sora and Kairi in his sights. Stupid though it may have been, he hadn't realized until that moment that if it truly came to war, they would get separated. It was impossible not to in this screaming chaos of a battle. Still he gritted his teeth and cut down any soldier that came between him and his friends, determined to stay with them for as long as humanly possible.

By the time the silver sword came slicing towards Riku's neck, he was on autopilot. He blocked it with Road to Dawn almost before he'd registered it coming. Their swords clashed together only inches between their faces—since Riku had blocked overhand and Link's right arm was taken up with his shield. For Riku recognized the green-garbed swordsman facing him now as the bearer of the Triforce of Courage, Link of Hyrule.

"Scared now?" Link grinned, mistaking Riku's expression for one of fear rather than of recognition. Riku gritted his teeth.

"In your dreams," he grunted. With a twist of the arm, he forced Link's sword away from him, holding it off to the right. Unfortunately, since Link was left-handed, this left him open on Link's now-free side. And his opponent took the opening to whip his right arm forward, smashing his polished metal shield into Riku's face.

The tall youth stumbled backwards, disengaging their swords. Pain bloomed across his nose, and he had just enough time to hope it wasn't broken before the next attack came. All he saw was a blur of green as Link launched into a forward flip that carried him over Riku's head, his sword coming around to take off his head. Riku flung up his free hand as if to ward off the blade with his skin, crying out.

"Twilight Shield!"

A honeycombed wall of grayish light bloomed between his hand and the incoming sword. Link bounced off of it, reversing his flip to land back in front of Riku, a few yards away. The silver-haired boy charged forward, Keyblade up, to bring it down in an overhead strike. Metal crashed on metal as Link blocked with his mirror-like shield. Riku grinned as he whipped the handle of his Keyblade around to slam into Link's gut. The blond swordsman half-doubled over, his mouth gaping for breath, while Road to Dawn was brought down towards his head in a move that had finished many a Heartless.

Link was no Heartless. His shield came up once more to block the blow, while his sword slashed horizontally at Riku's exposed midriff. The silver-haired boy leaped backwards, taking his left hand off of his sword to extend it towards Link.

"Twilight Fire!" he barked, sending a volley of charcoal-colored flames towards the swordsman. That infernal shield was raised once more to protect him. That was the moment when Riku discovered exactly how much like a mirror the bearer of the Triforce of Courage's shield really was.

The fireballs hit the shiny surface and reflected wildly in all directions back at Riku. The boy ducked just in time as three of them shot like wayward comets through where his head had once been. Behind them, three Stalchildren shrieked as they crumbled in flames.

Link took advantage of his enemy's vulnerable stance, running forward with his sword raised. Riku had barely enough time to rise before the younger warrior was upon him, his blade headed for Riku's chest. Riku managed to deflect the thrust just before it impaled him, leaving Link overbalanced and unguarded.

A cloud of dust arose from beneath Link's boots as he landed from his spring to avoid Riku's decapitating strike. Riku whirled around, and both boys took up their preferred fighting stances once more, their eyes boring into each other.

"They say," Link panted, pacing slowly to the right, "that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In which case, I'm touched."

"Who's to say that you're not the reflection, and I'm the mirror?" Riku snarled back, moving to his left.

"The Goddesses made my Triforce," Link snapped.

"And obviously they made mine, too. So which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Riku smirked cockily despite the blood trickling out of his nostrils. Link scowled back, his cheek smudged with soot from Riku's fireballs.

Simultaneously, both young warriors charged at each other, swords at the ready.

And the fight continued.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ganondorf was in his element. Hordes of Stalkins and Stalchildren fell before him, and even the several Stalfos and Lizalfos that were foolish enough to challenge him met the same fate. His great sword had been lost amidst the fray, (as had his horse, Loki) most probably lodged in the no-longer-moving skeleton of some Stal or other. He fought bare-handed, his magic cutting swathes through the packed cadavers before him.

Zant watched the Gerudo man as he single-handedly took out a group of armed Lizalfos from his place atop the Stallord's head. He figured that he would join the battle once he spotted a sword he could steal to complete his preferred dual-bladed style of fighting. It was in that endeavor that he had spotted Ganondorf working his way through the Stals, taking out everything in his path. Zant forgot what he was looking for, instead watching in awe.

That man… was _unstoppable_. He was the very definition of power. Which made sense, of course, since that _was_ the trait that had won him his Triforce. Zant leaned forward, his transparent fingers gripping a ridge of bone tightly, his expression longing. He thought back to his attempts to practice with his swords in the desert, back to his cousin and the other Twili all laughing at him. What he wouldn't give for the power that man possessed. What he wouldn't give to wipe the smirk off of his insufferable relative's face, off of _all_ their faces. What he wouldn't give…

At that moment, a spot of color appeared among the uniform gray-ivory of the Stalkins and Stalchildren. It was—Zant squinted—the girl, Kairi, the Mirror Triforce of Dependence. She was fighting alongside those two undead mutts of hers with that ludicrously floral, fairy-princess key. Her two omnipresent bodyguards (commonly known as 'friends') were nowhere in sight. Zant snorted, betting himself that she'd be cut down in the next five minutes.

_Or_, he thought, spotting Ganondorf making his way towards her, _make that _two _minutes._ He watched eagerly, all but cackling at the thought that this, _this_, would finally wipe his cousin's smirk off. Ganondorf, too, was smirking, anticipating being the first to kill one of the fabled Mirrors. His fist swung around towards her, as big as her head itself. Black magic flared around it like fire around a meteor.

At the last moment, the girl caught a glimpse of her incoming demise out of the corner of her eye. She whirled around, her Keyblade rising and her mouth forming a shout that could be heard even where Zant was sitting.

"Reflega!"

A bubble of golden light appeared around the girl, flaring out from her Keyblade. Ganondorf's fist hit the sphere, his black magic dissipating against her light magic in an instant.

Of course, the punch was still physical, and the bubble had to have been physical, too, in order to stop it. Physics dictated what happened next, and it went exactly to script.

The golden bubble containing Kairi shot away like a struck pinball. The girl inside was tossed around like dirty laundry as her magic hamster ball bounced away over the heads of the fighting armies, reminiscent of a beach-ball on graduation day. Ganondorf blinked unsurely, obviously debating whether to emulate her Stalhounds (who had run after the fleeing orb, yipping) or to leave well enough alone and go back to killing Stalkins.

The decision was made for him. Zant jerked in surprise at a sudden rumbling noise that vibrated up to his ears through the soles of his feet. He looked down, startled to see that the Stallord had apparently been watching as well, and was now growling. With a sudden lurch that nearly unseated its passenger, the Stallord jumped forward. Its bony claws pounded the ground, scattering soldiers in all directions. Zant slid backwards over the smooth dome of its skull, coming to rest its fringe of hair. The Twili Prince clung to the foul-smelling strands for dear life as the Stallord charged.

As Ganondorf stood deliberating, he heard a loud roar from behind him. A rhythmic thumping began beneath his boots. The red-haired man turned curiously.

A bony claw hit him with all the force of a charging horse, punching the breath from his lungs. The Stallord kept going, carrying Ganondorf along with it, pressed flat into its claw by the momentum. Fighters scattered before them as the Stallord barreled through, its whipping tail serving to clear swathes through the armies.

Their progress was halted by the wall of the cliffs that encircled the Field. The Skeleton Lord roared, shoving his claw forward so that there was an explosion of rocks and dust, a crater appearing in the cliffside.

Far away, the Kairi-bubble popped, dropping a very dizzy redhead to the ground, where her worried hounds hovered over her, licking her face and biting anyone who came too close.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Blue and purple sheets of sparkling light danced around each other, flirting and courting, but never touching. Their dance continued into infinity, into the far reaches of the universe beyond human comprehension. Perhaps they weren't lights at all. In any case, these curtains reluctantly parted, allowing a circular window of clarity into a specific part of the vastness of the dimensions contained within (around, behind, beneath) them. A circle of marble floated just beneath this window, like a solid shadow cast by its immaterial presence. On this platform stood a gray-haired woman with hawk's eyes and an old priest with a white mustache and orange robes.

In the center of the platform, a pillar of green light (little white stars shining through it like bubbles rising in champagne) sprouted. The ghostly tree withered after just an instant of life, revealing the small girl within its trunk. The girl skipped forward, a bit hesitantly, to join the two at the edge. The woman finally noticed her, glancing down in surprise.

"Saria," she said. "I thought you couldn't bear to watch."

"I couldn't bear not to, Impa," Saria replied morosely. "I need to know how the other Sages are faring. And Link, too, and Sheik."

"I understand," Impa smiled kindly, and her stern face melted into a maternal kind of expression that Saria wouldn't have ever thought could look natural on her. Then the forest girl remembered that Impa had been the Princess's primary caretaker when she was a little girl—her mother-figure, since her true mother was dead—and the expression didn't seem so odd anymore. Saria turned to the window, clenching her teeth resolutely to hold back a gasp at the carnage she saw.

"The Princess," Saria said. "Where is Zelda?"

"Show us the Princess," the old man commanded the window. Obediently, their view pulled back before zooming in once more. Saria nearly wept with joy. Zelda was unhurt, purple and gold lights spinning around her hands as she cast spell after spell into the fray. She looked tired and sweaty, but otherwise fine.

No sooner had Saria noticed this, however, than a new contender appeared before her. It was a teenaged boy with strange clothes and an even stranger weapon. The two faced off against each other for a few moments, their mouths moving, though no sound could be heard.

"Who is that? What are they saying? Let us hear!" Saria half-ordered, half-pleaded to the window.

The Sacred Realm was suddenly filled with crashes of metal and the screams of the wounded and dying—both men and beasts. The blood drained from Saria's face, making room for the bile that rose in her throat. She immediately regretted her cry, but now she had something else to focus on as Zelda's voice filled the room.

"…proper that the two of us should battle," she was saying.

"There has to be another way!" the boy's voice was husky, and full of desperation. "We didn't come here to fight. This is all a mistake!"

"Your Mirror Triforce may make you naïve, but it does not make you stupid," Zelda gave an unladylike snort, a mannerism she must have learned from Tetra. "Do not pretend you had nothing to do with this. You will pay for threatening my kingdom."

"I didn't…!" the boy was cut off by the arrow of golden light that zipped towards his face. There was a blur of silver and a shower of gold as his blade came up to bat it away, dissolving the arrow into fireflies of golden light. By the time he'd recovered, Zelda had already flung a volley of violet flames at him from her hands. The boy dove to the side, allowing the swarm to pass him.

The fire, however, had other ideas. They curved around to come at him again, hissing malevolently. The brunet cried out as they impacted his back, throwing him forward onto his hands and knees. Zelda swept her hand out, hurling another bolt of light directly at him.

"Thundaga!" the boy shouted hoarsely, rolling to the side to avoid the attack, thrusting his blade straight up. Zelda screamed in shock as nearly ten bolts of lightning dropped out of the sky around her, pelting her with sharp bits of rock and singeing her skin. The smell of burning hair curled upwards with the smoke.

The Princess glanced towards where the boy had been, only to find the space empty. A telltale sound gave her just enough warning to conjure up a sword of golden light in time to block the Mirror of Naïveté's overhead strike as he dropped down from his flying leap.

"Your friend is the coward, not you," Zelda snarled as they were deadlocked. "If you are not going to strike to kill, simply let me rid the world of your scourge!"

"I won't kill you," the boy said earnestly.

"Then die!" The Princess's other hand came up to unleash a barrage of glowing needles into her opponent's face. He jumped backwards and leveled his blade at her chest.

For a moment, Saria saw an odd expression cross the boy's face. His hands trembled momentarily on his weapon before steadying, his mouth opening.

"Blizzaga!" he snapped. A wide jet of frost shot from the tip of his key, sweeping across Zelda in an icy blast that soothed the burns on her arms and chilled her to the bone. She faltered in her forward charge, giving the boy enough time to swing his blade around as if winding up for a strike.

Abruptly, the view pulled back, Zelda and the Mirror boy becoming mere dots among the chaotic throng. Saria could see the entire battle, tangling together into a single swarm of black ants. The Sage of Forest turned to her companions, frantic.

"What's going on? What about the Princess?!" she demanded. "Zoom back in!"

"You'll want to see this part," Impa promised with a small, fierce smile that was nothing like the one she'd directed at Saria earlier. "Those revenants will never know what hit them."

Saria turned worriedly back to the window, her hands clasped together to keep them from trembling. At least the sounds of battle had receded with the view, so it was now a quiet, white noise rather than an overwhelming roar. She couldn't even see the death from this height, though Lon Lon Ranch was visible at the edge of the circle…

A sudden movement by the Ranch caught her eye. She squinted, gasping in shock when she saw what it was. A troop of Hylian cavalrymen was charging across the Field towards the Stal army's turned backs, their lances leveled.

"Look over there," Rauru pointed towards the other side of the window. Saria did so, nearly gasping again.

From the other side came an avalanche of Gorons, balled up and rolling faster even than the cavalry horses. Amongst the spheres of seemingly solid rock were Zora warriors wielding spears and their special fin-blades.

The two groups of reinforcements crashed into the Stal army at the same time, with devastating results. The Stals were pushed back, away from Hyrule Castle and back towards the cliffs. Saria cheered, seeing the enemy on the run.

In the next few seconds, that joy was swept cleanly away. Though the Stals wavered and almost broke, they had regrouped in a moment to focus on their pursuers' weak point: the Hylain cavalry. Their charge halted, the horsemen had lost their greatest advantage. In addition to that, their numbers were far fewer than that of the Gorons and the Zoras. The Stals lashed out with the ferocity of a cornered rat, effectively breaking through on that side. What would have been a perfect maneuver to get their backs to the wall and cut off their retreat had been decimated. The fighting upped in intensity, the Stals now leaking out around the Hylians' weakened flank and attacking the Gorons and Zoras from the side.

"No…" Saria shook her head, her eyes wide and fixed. "No!" She turned and fled to the center of the platform, vanishing in a tangle of green thorns of light, dull and despondent.

"Poor girl," Impa murmured. "She's not used to this sort of thing…"

"Neither are we," Rauru sighed. "Hyrule hasn't seen a war of this scale since Ganondorf's coup. Speaking of which, there is a more important matter we should be thinking about…"

"You saw, too?" Impa gritted her teeth and glared at the vision of the brawl before them. "I was hoping I'd forgotten the plan…"

"You haven't, my dear," Rauru's mustache bristled, the priest looking as fierce as Impa had ever seen him. "And Ganondorf's Gerudo should have been part of that charge. If they had been, the Stals would never have broken through."

"Where were they?" Impa asked, knowing that the Sage of Light could not answer.

"That," he sighed, "is something I would like to know myself." Impa's fists balled up, tightening until her nails drew blood from her palm.

"Ganondorf," she whispered, "what treachery have you wrought this time?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"What the…?"

Sora paused in his charge as his opponent looked away, her face falling in horror. The magic around her suddenly-limp arms fizzled out like a snuffed candle, her skirts swirling around her.

"Ganondorf!" she suddenly growled. "That filthy traitor!" Before Sora could ask what was wrong (as if she would have answered him anyway), the girl was suddenly wreathed in purple lights. The light disappeared along with her, and Sora was left blinking at the empty slice of battlefield, his Keyblade drooping in his hands.

"What just happened here?" he asked himself softly, straightening from his crouch.

"Well, well, well," someone said behind him. "Here's a face I never thought I'd see _here_." Sora jolted, spinning around on his heel. The tall, twiggy man behind him folded his arms and grinned humorlessly, shaking his head so that the forest of red spikes on his head danced. Sora lit up.

"A-Axel?! Is that you? You're alive!" he shouted, all grins. "How did you survive?!"

"It wasn't hard," Axel shrugged, beginning to pace in a circle around Sora. "Especially since I was faking it from start to finish." Sora's smile faded as the notion that something was not right here struck him, confusion and a little concern creeping in.

"What do you mean? Why would you…?"

"So I could kill you, that's why!" Axel suddenly barked, turning on Sora. "You didn't really think I was going to let you suck up my l—my best friend and just waltz away, did you? You're even more naïve than that mark on your hand suggests!" He snorted out a bitter laugh, his hands flexing by his sides as he continued to circle the Hero of Light, like a shark that scents blood in the water. "I planned on stealing your heart and freeing Roxas forever. Without you, he wouldn't have to always be looking over his shoulder, always second-guessing his own thoughts and feelings. He would be free!"

"I didn't mean to do any of that," Sora said helplessly. "I can't help being what I am."

"For once, kid, I am very grateful you are what you are," the Flurry of Dancing Flames smirked. Twin flowers of fire bloomed around his hands, spinning around and around until he snatched them out of the air. The flames hardened into spiked red and silver metal. "Because now that you're here with that thing on your hand, I have the perfect excuse to kill you. And Roxas never needs to know."

"Never needs…?" Sora repeated, his forehead furrowed. He suddenly brightened with realization. "That means… You know where Roxas is?! Where is he? Is he alright?"

"He's just fine," Axel's smirk widened. "Better, now that I'm going to free him. Sorry, kid. It's nothing personal."

Without any more warning, the tall man sprang forward, fire trailing from his chakram as he swung it at Sora's head. Sora shouted in surprise, the Kingdom Key springing up to crash against it in a shower of sparks. Axel glared at the boy, his mint green eyes tracing the snub nose and round cheeks and wide, blue eyes. For a moment, he faltered.

In that moment, Sora pushed the chakram off to the side, spinning around as he struck at the Nobody's ribs. Axel backflipped out of the way, his coat flaring up around him as he landed like leathery wings. His resolve hardened once more. This wasn't Roxas. He had to keep that memorized. Not Roxas. Not Roxas.

The redhead raised his arms upwards, his face breaking into a maniacal grin.

"Burn, baby!" he cackled. Pillars of flame rose up around the Keyblade Master, swirling towards him. The boy dodged and rolled frantically, finally breaking through the minefield with only a few burns. The moment he was clear, he came face-to-spike with Axel's chakrams, driven straight at his heart.

"Blizzaga!" Sora gabbled out desperately. Axel grunted as the ice sprayed over him, his aura of fire going out in a moment. His limbs slowed, numbed by the cold, enabling Sora to slam his Keyblade sideways into Axel's gut. The redhead grunted again, falling back. Sora stepped forward to repeat the blow, his arms over his head. He didn't see Axel's left arm curling around until it was too late, the chakram biting deeply into his shoulder.

Both combatants leaped apart, each clutching their injuries and breathing heavily.

"Why are you… doing this…?" Sora demanded weakly, blood seeping through his fingers and dripping to the already-stained grass. Axel sneered, too winded to laugh.

"I told you…"

"You're lying!" Sora shouted with sudden strength, his eyes spitting sapphire lightning. Axel jerked back, his own eyes going round as the boy continued. "I know you weren't faking it when you helped me Betwixt and Between. I know it! You've always helped me… So tell me, what's the real reason for all of this?"

Axel's shoulders slumped slightly, the laugh he was too weak to make bubbling up in his throat uncontrollably. He looked up, not sure whether to glare or smirk.

"Fine, you caught me. You're pretty sharp for his other half." He straightened, his gaze steady. "I really did try to kill myself then. It wasn't worth living that half-life, watching you and knowing you weren't him. But I didn't put enough power into it… I guess I really didn't want to die as badly as I thought… The part about trying to steal your heart is true. That little hag of yours wouldn't let you go that easily, right? And then Roxas would be free…" He gestured violently, his face morphing into a snarl. "But it didn't work like that. He's obsessed with being your shadow. He never stops thinking about it; if this keeps up, he's going to fall so far away that even I can't reach him anymore—somewhere I can't follow. Even from worlds away, you're stealing him away from me! I won't let you corrupt him! I won't let him call himself inferior ever again! I'll wipe you from the face of the worlds, even if it means killing the precious Hero of Light! I'll do all of that!"

"…Why…?" Sora whispered, his voice choked. "Why would you do that… for him…?" Axel was almost crying now, something he thought he'd never see. The Flurry of Dancing Flames hurled his chakram forward with two quick movements, fire flaring all around them as the Field went up in flames, the roar nearly drowning out Axel's tortured scream.

"_Because I love him_!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Yee-hah!" Roxas whooped in delight, dust billowing up around him in thick clouds. The sound of his wooden wheels zipping over the stone echoed throughout the ballroom, filling his ears. He leaned to the side, swerving around the dais and circling it once before zooming back towards the other end of the room. The polished marble made for a wonderful skateboarding surface, as smooth as a dream. The dust was somewhat irritating, but he could live with that. He'd missed skateboarding…

A sudden noise caught his attention. A quick glance from the corner of his eye showed Saira re-entering the room, her face pale and upset. He did another rapid circuit of the room, wishing for a ramp or some other obstacle for him to do some tricks on. The dais was too low. Saria seated herself on the edge of it, flinching when the Key of Destiny screeched to a fishtailing halt before her, kicking his board up to catch it in his hand and flip a grin at her. It was a simple move, one that most rookie boarders could do, but it cheered Saria to no end. She beamed back at him.

"That was amazing!" she said. "I didn't think that board… But you look so cool when you're riding it! Can you do other tricks?"

"I can, but not on a flat surface," Roxas sat next to her, unable to banish his grin. "If this platform had a rail I could grind it for you, but… I've got it!" He sprang back up, throwing his board down. "Watch." He pushed off and did a few more laps of the room to build up speed. When he was directly in front of Saria, he flicked his feet and jumped, the skateboard beneath him flipping over just in time for him to land and zoom off again. The small Sage applauded and giggled. Roxas smiled at her childish joy, glad that he'd been able to make her forget whatever it was that had her upset. Unfortunately, he knew what it was, and his own curiosity wouldn't let her forget it for long.

He slowed to a stop by the platform, taking his seat once more and looking at her gravely. The green-haired girl sobered as well, guessing what he was going to ask about next.

"How's the battle going?" he asked.

"Not well," her voice was small. "I don't know what happened… they withstood our attack, and now it's all one big mess. I don't know if we can still win it…"

"Did you see Axel, or Sheik, or Link, or Tetra?" Roxas asked anxiously. Saria shook her head.

"I only saw the Princess. She was fighting the Mirror of Naïveté," she reported, then frowned. "I didn't see what happened to them, though. I couldn't watch a moment longer."

"Was he that frightening?" Roxas attempted lightheartedness. It seemed to work, for Saria smiled and even laughed a little.

"Not at all. He wasn't even a bit like what I expected."

"What was he like?" the Nobody pursued this seemingly-harmless subject. The girl's face scrunched up in thought.

"Well, he was very young. About your age, I think. He was dressed in odd clothes, all black and yellow with big shoes like yours. He had blue eyes like you, too, and could use magic. He refused to fight the Princess seriously," she scowled.

Roxas, meanwhile, had gone cold all over. Gooseflesh rippled across his arms. A horrible suspicion crept into his thoughts. No… It couldn't be. He shook his head. No way. But just to be sure…

"Saria?" his voice had gone higher, the faux calm obvious. "Did he have spiky brown hair and a fight with a key like this?" He summoned Oathkeeper, paying no heed to Saria's startled gasp.

"Yes, yes! His was like that, except that it was silver and gold instead of white," she nodded. "And his hair was all brown and spiky, too. But how did you…?"

"Sora!" Roxas leaped to his feet. His mind was working frantically.

It made sense. He had the Triforce of balance, didn't he? Why would some random Nobody be the balancer between two groups of people he'd never heard of? Sheik had a connection to the ones whose Triforce he was the center of, and so did Roxas. That meant Kairi and Riku, too, had Mirror Triforces. Dependance and Fear, while Sora was Naïveté. It all made sense…

And there was currently an army out there trying to kill his Somebody.

Roxas spun on his heel and raced from the room, grabbing his skateboard as he went. His arms pumped and his sneakers squeaked loudly, his teeth gritted.

_Hold on, Sora. I'm coming for you. _

_Please don't die before I get there…_


	21. 20: Oops

**Kitty: Eh, kinda reluctant to post. Again, lack of reviews. But I figured I'd made you all wait long enough, so here it is. There's just one more chapter after this and then the epilogue. On a completely unrelated note, how do you all feel about lemons…?**

**Axel: Yes! –victory dance-**

**Kitty: I said 'unrelated'. Hmph. Anyway, have any of you got 358/2 Days yet? I did. Whoo-boy. Some pretty creepy-ass stuff going on THERE. And am I the only one who wonders what, exactly, Xemnas DOES while everyone else is on missions and things? Does he just sit in his little high-chair throne waiting for people to ask him questions and thinking up morbid names for every room in the castle?**

**Axel: Pretty much. So I suppose if you owned Kingdom Hearts (which you don't) he'd do more?**

**Kitty: Nah, not really. Now if I owned Legend of Zelda (which I don't) SHEIK would do more. As a separate character.**

**Axel: Anyway, enjoy! Or something.**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Chapter XX**

**Oops**

"_Stop it! Stop fighting! Red and blue… We're all the same!"_

—_Tucker, 'Red vs. Blue'_

Wind whistled in his ears, chilling him to the bone and giving everything the feeling of being underwater. His clothes flapped like frantically beating wings against his skin. Hyrule Field flew past him at breakneck speeds as Roxas zipped over the grass towards the distant battle.

When he'd been whittling his skateboard, the boy had known he'd only ever be able to use it indoors. Hyrule wasn't paved, not anywhere. As long as he had access to the castle, though, it was okay. That building was full of enormous, disused rooms for him to ride around in. He could even take it for a ride down the hallways if he was feeling reckless, and watch the courtiers scatter before him like startled pigeons.

Now, though, there was only one way to get where he wanted to go fast enough, and that way was not running. He couldn't glide like Sora, and this was too important for him to risk screwing up another portal. Link had taken Epona, and he didn't have enough time to stop by the Ranch and beg another horse off Malon and Naminé. That left him with one option: the skateboard. And, with the help of a little magic, he was off.

His knees were bent as they were supposed to be, his feet placed correctly on the board. His arms, however, were not as they should have been. In front of him, he held Oblivion pointed towards the ground ahead of him. A stream of particles bled from the tip, spreading and hardening into a path of ice that his board zipped along even faster than it did on the sidewalks of Twilight Town. Behind him, Oathkeeper loosed a blast of wind to further speed him on his way.

He could feel the magic sapping the strength from his veins, like a wound spilling blood. But it wouldn't beat him. He'd reach the fight before he collapsed, he knew. His magic was just as strong as his body, and his physical strength was not insubstantial. For the first time, he saw the worth of this.

He gritted his teeth and poured even more strength into the spells. He had to get there and put things right, before something terrible happened. It was his duty.

His duty as a Nobody, as well as as the bearer of the Triforce of Naught.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sora leaped back, his shoes sliding a little on the cocktail of mud, blood, and grass beneath his feet. His face and arms were littered with burns, and his shoulder still bled sluggishly. Axel was like a hurricane, furious and unstoppable.

The blows rained down on Sora's upraised key like hail, each one forcing him deeper and deeper down onto his knees. In desperation, the Hero of Light kicked out at the Nobody's legs. Axel jumped to the side, and Sora had enough time to rise to his feet before the man was on him again. Sora gritted his teeth.

He couldn't kill another person. He just couldn't. The memory of the Hylian soldier he'd murdered had been playing over and over again behind his eyes ever since this battle had started. He'd been able to defend himself without attacking back until he'd confronted their leader, that Princess Zelda. Even then, when he'd been about to cast Firaga, his nerve had failed him and he'd had to cast the less-effective Blizzaga instead. It was worth it, though, if it meant he never had to look down on another body charred beyond humanity and know that it was his fault, his fault, his fault.

But now Axel's chakrams spun a net of silver metal and crimson flames around him, burning and cutting faster than he could block. He had to attack back, he knew, if he could get an opening. But he couldn't… he just couldn't kill him. Not least because of what he'd admitted…

While he struggled with himself internally, he forgot to pay attention to his external struggle as much as he should have. This mistake cost him dearly as he stepped right into a puddle of some poor soldier's blood. His foot slipped forward uncontrollably, sending the Keyblade Master thudding into the dirt on his back. A boot planted itself on his chest, preventing him from rising. The mud and blood from the sole of the shoe soaked into Sora's shirt. Another stepped onto the wrist of his right hand (the one that held the Keyblade), meaning that all of the Nobody's weight was on those two points. Sora bit back a shout as the bones in his wrist creaked, sweat trickling down his temples. It was going to break…!

"Finally," Axel hissed, lifting his chakram upwards, ready to bring it down on the boy's undefended chest. Yes, he'd stab him through the heart. That would be delicious irony. Poetic justice, he believed it was called. He licked his lips in anticipation, winding up a little further. He savored the moment. In just another second, he'd bring it down, and Sora would be no more. Roxas would be free. He'd never again lament his nonexistence. He'd never again call himself a worthless shadow, never again check his every action to make sure it wasn't something Sora would do or approve of. He'd be free to be himself, to live his own way, to love Axel back…

Axel looked down at his helpless victim. For some reason, his arm was locked in place, as if it had been cemented there. He scowled and tried to drive it down, into the boy's heart. Those big blue eyes were shut, hiding the reflection of another face that was exactly the same. They weren't looking at him. He could do it!

_See, Axel_, he growled to himself, _no freckles. He's got a tan. His hair is brown—see?—and sticking out in all directions. Not swept to the side. He's not Roxas. He's not Roxas. He's not—_

Sora cracked his eyes open cautiously, sucking in a deep breath as the weight on his chest was removed. He snatched his aching wrist to his chest, dropping the Keyblade to rub the tender joint with his other hand. Slowly, he sat up, casting a wide-eyed look at the Nobody above him. Wintergreen eyes were shut, fists clenched and chakrams gone, his face averted. The tattoos gave the illusion of tears, as if he were crying.

"I can't do it…" the tortured whisper furthered the illusion, his voice cracking in the middle. "Why can't I…? You're not him. You're not Roxas. But I can't…"

"I'm your friend, Axel," Sora said, as if begging, his own voice just as hoarse and broken. "I'm your friend."

"You're not!" Axel's eyes snapped open, wild and bloodshot, to glare at the boy. Somehow, even bristling and furious, he looked ready to cry. It was terrifying to see him this way, on the verge of such a personal breakdown. "I hate you! _He_ hates you! With you around, he can't… he'll never…!"

"Axel," Sora rose to his knees slowly, his blue eyes never leaving Axel's. "You've got it wrong. He was a part of me, for a while, and I know… he loves you, too. For sure."

Axel's eyes slid shut. He sighed, all the tension seeming to leave him with that one outpouring of oxygen. He didn't open his eyes, even as he smiled a small, sad smile.

"Don't get me wrong, kid, but even though you're my friend… I didn't want to hear that from you."

"I know," Sora looked down at the Keyblade, shining among the red mud and trampled grass, seeing the ghost of a reflection in its silver blade, phantom eyes staring back at him from a flat-nosed face.

They were turquoise.

"I'm sorry."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Roxas was forced to abandon his skateboard at the fringes of the battle. He kicked it aside and began to shove his way through the packed bodies, using his Keyblades to shift the more stubborn ones from his path. Blue eyes scanned the battlefield with desperation and a little despair. How could he find Sheik in this mess? The fight spread on to either side of him for what seemed like miles. His friend could have been anywhere in there.

A sudden CRACK cut through the noise of battle. It was immediately followed by a jet of fire that sprang up many yards ahead of Roxas. The screams of agony redoubled in intensity after that. Roxas grinned and sprinted forward, thanking the Goddesses for this stroke of good luck.

He shoved aside a final Stalchild in his way, revealing Sheik in full battle regalia.

And the whip, headed right for Roxas.

"Holy…!" the Nobody leaped aside just in time, the spiked chain carving a gash into the earth nearly three inches deep. The weapon snapped back, gearing up for another strike.

"Sheik! Sheik, it's me, you moron! Are you blind or something?" Roxas raged, running forward. Sheik paused in his attacks, blinking in realization. A small smile quirked up the corner of his eye.

"Of course not. Even if I were, I would recognize that ranting anywhere," he said. "Finally decided to join the fight, Roxas?" There was pride in his voice. Roxas felt slightly guilty for betraying that pride, but it didn't last long. This was far more important than proving his sense of duty right now.

"No. There's no time to explain, you have to come with me!" he seized the older Nobody's wrist (Oblivion vanishing brilliantly) and began to haul him through the struggling masses, heading for the epicenter of the fighting. Sheik sprinted along behind him, bewildered but trusting.

"What is the matter, Roxas?" he shouted over the sounds of battle.

"We have to stop this war!" he yelled back. "There's been a misunderstanding! _Sora is the Hero of Light_!"

Sheik nearly stopped running in his surprise. His mind flashed back to the Mirror leader, his round face and wide eyes. For a moment, Sheik berated himself internally for not recognizing his friend's face, albeit on another body. In the next instant, he had sped up again, Roxas still leading him by the wrist.

It took a fair bit of strife and many cracks from Sheik's whip before they arrived. Roxas skidded to a halt, yanking Sheik up short behind him. He jerked up their arms, sliding his hand up into Sheik's so that his right palm pressed into Sheik's left, turning so that they stood side-by-side, facing opposite directions. The Triforces on the backs of their hands began to shine with a light brighter than Roxas had ever seen before, brighter and brighter until he was half-blinded by it. The noise of screaming and crashing and dying grew louder and louder and louder in his eyes just like the light grew in his eyes, deafening him. It had to stop. He had to make it stop. It all… just… had to…

"_**STOP**_!"

The word, screamed out by two voices, rang across the entire Field, even louder than the loudest of the Stallord's roars, even louder than silence. There was a tremendous crashing slithering noise as the masses of combatants around them were suddenly yanked back as if by rubber bands or an invisible magnet. The Stals, Lizalfos, Twili, and Mirrors all flew backwards to land in a heap before the cliffs, in the direction that Roxas was facing. The Hylians, Gerudo, Zoras, Gorons, and Triforce bearers were jerked through the air until they collapsed in front of the castle walls, under Sheik's fierce red stare, the two sides separated like drops of oil and water. Every eye of both sides fixed on the two boys—who found themselves suddenly in the no man's land between the separated armies—with upraised hands, the glow no longer just emanating from their hands.

Sheik and Roxas had sprouted wings. They were as transparent as glass, the feathers nothing but spaces between glowing outlines like an uncolored child's drawing. These lines shone with white light that matched the glow from their Triforces, one curving from Roxas's left shoulder, and one sprouting from Sheik's right shoulder. The two wings spread out over nearly a hundred yards all told, massive and curving upwards, then down again, spread out . Those wings as much as any magic separated the two armies from each other.

"Everyone, listen," Roxas's voice rang out once more, not nearly as loud as before, but clearly audible even to those at the rear of their army. "This has to stop now. You've all made a grave mistake."

"Roxas?" the voice after Roxas's ringing one sounded small and tinny, and only reached those nearest to it. It was enough, though for Roxas to look, and nearly release Sheik's hand in shock.

Sora. Sora, standing large as life before him, battered and bleeding but grinning as wide as Roxas had never seen him grin, delight in every line of his body.

"Roxas!" Sora shouted, waving his arm over his head. "You're okay! You're okay! I'm so glad you're here!"

"Sora…" Roxas murmured, startled to realize that he wanted to cry. Not with sadness or pain or frustration… but with happiness. He was… _overjoyed._ So, so, so happy to see Sora again. So, so, so happy to see him alive and well. He wanted to cry from relief and joy. Sora was here. Sora was okay.

"What is the meaning of this? Sheik?" a voice from the other side of the gap called out. Sheik's gaze moved to fix on the emerging, purple-dressed figure. Princess Zelda's hair was in disarray, and she looked furious. "What are you doing?!"

"You have all made a gross error," Sheik shook his head sadly. "That boy, the Mirror of Naïveté, Sora, is Roxas's Somebody. The Hero of Light."

"What?" Link, appearing beside Zelda, gaped. The Princess, too, looked thunderstruck, but recovered much more quickly.

"Then he is the Nobody of a vile, deceptive monster! He brought an army of monsters to our home, Sheik! He raised the dead to die again for him through dark magic! He's _evil_, and he's tricking you with the face of a friend!"

"No, Princess, you are tricking yourself," Sheik said firmly. "Sora tried to negotiate with us. We were the ones who didn't listen to him, blinded by our mistaken belief that he was evil for not being wise. We were the ones who struck out and caused his followers to rise up in revenge. This—all of this terrible slaughter—has been our fault from the start."

"No, this is our fault, too!" Sora stepped forward, shouting to be heard. "We should have tried harder to make you listen. We never came here to fight."

"No, you wouldn't have," Roxas shook his head, smiling fondly. "Same old Sora. Can I leave you alone for any length of time without you getting into trouble?"

"Nope!" the brunet beamed. After a moment, he subsided slightly, frowning a little. "Roxas… why are you talking that way?"

"Why am I talking what way?" Roxas blinked.

"Old-fashionedly," Sora clarified. The Nobody bristled.

"I am not talking old-fashionedly! This is the way that I speak!" he shouted.

"See! 'The way that I speak'! You're talking strangely!"

"I am not!"

"You truly are two halves of the same person," Sheik whispered, slightly awed by the boy that could match Roxas shout for shout. They meshed so well… Even after such a long separation, there was no awkwardness. They were just as familiar with each other as siblings, possibly even more so. He wondered if people felt the same sort of aural double vision when they listened to him and Link talking. He frowned and hoped not.

"Um, guys?" Kairi spoke from Sora's elbow. The brunet jolted, wondering when she had gotten there. "We kind of have a war to break up, you know."

"Oh, right," Sora smiled sheepishly. Kairi rolled her eyes.

"You dork."

Princess Zelda looked back and forth between the blond Nobody, the blue-eyed brunet, and the red-haired girl with wide eyes. A light slowly kindled behind them, her lips parting involuntarily. Her hands slowly came up to clasp beneath her chin.

"I see now…" she murmured, watching them. "I see what I was missing. I forgot the most important thing…" Cloth rustled beside her, the Princess's double moving up to watch as well.

"What's that?" Tetra asked. Zelda's eyes shut completely, a sad smile blossoming on her face.

"I forgot to judge a person not by the powers they wield, but by the heart that wields them. Because that, in the end, is what makes us who we are."

"We don't have hearts to wield us," Tetra said softly, one hand clenching the fabric over her chest.

"A heart isn't something you can see just by looking at a person," Zelda told her. "To my eyes, you are the same as Link or… Sora. The only way you can read a person's heart is by their actions. Wherever it is that your actions come from, Tetra… that is your heart."

"I see," the girl smiled ahead, her eyes staring blankly into the distance at a sight only she could see. "Then… I guess the desert is my heart."

"What do you think Sheik's heart is?" Link spoke, slightly startling the Hylian Gerudo, who hadn't realized the swordsman was listening. Even now, his eyes remained riveted on the conjoined figures of the two Nobodies between them and the Stal army.

"Now that," the girl grinned wickedly, slapping his shoulder, "is something you're just going to have to find out for yourself."

"Zelda!" The conversation was interrupted by the approach of a large, round figure beside a small, slender one. The Sages of Fire and Water halted before the Princess.

"Is the battle done?" Ruto asked, her fins flicking. "Are we to go home now?"

Zelda's smile grew uncontrollably. She was never more glad to answer. "Yes, my friends. Gather your people. We're going home."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"They're leaving," Sheik murmured from the side of his mouth. Roxas glanced over his shoulder to see that it was true. The Hylians, Gerudo, Gorons, and Zora were dispersing slowly to their respective corners of Hyrule Field.

"I think we can let go now," the Nobody added. Roxas nodded sheepishly.

"Yeah, you're right."

Their joined hands dropped, their fingers peeling apart. Some invisible force tried to pull them back together, as if their two hands were opposite poles of a magnet. Roxas jerked his hand away, and the light on the back of it flickered and died. Sheik's symbol, too, went out like a flipped switch.

Their wings, on the other hand, retracted back into their shoulders until they were more proportionally normal. And there they stayed, half-folded around his back, weightless and mostly insubstantial.

"What…?" the shorter blond spun in an undignified circle like a dog chasing its tail, trying to stare at the unwanted appendage. "Why isn't it leaving? Go away! Sheik, why didn't they leave?! We let go!"

"I do not know…" the red-eyed youth murmured, his hand coming up to tuck his fist beneath his chin while his other hand cupped his elbow. His gaze was riveted on the flapping, glowing shape on his friend's back. "This is the first time we have used our shared Triforce's power, no?"

"I think so, yeah," Roxas nodded. "But what does that have to do with…?"

"A side-effect, Roxas," Sheik interrupted, "of using the Triforce of Naught."

"The Triforce of Naught gives you a _wing_?" Roxas stared. "I think you need a check-up from the neck up, Sheik."

"My head is fine, thank you," Sheik glared. "Have you considered the fact that these wings of ours are obviously made of some form of energy—energy which might be molded into other forms?"

"Oh…" Roxas wilted. "No. Sorry. I'll see what I can do…" He frowned, concentrating. The mental 'spot' he accessed to use his magic seemed to come a bit more readily to his call than before—bigger, stronger. After that, it was a simple matter of sending out a command as he would with any spell, and the wing on his back dissipated into a haze of white light. In a moment, the haze drifted around and coalesced into a familiar shape extending from Roxas's left hand. The younger Nobody examined his creation with satisfaction. It was a replica of Oathkeeper—sort of. Like the wing, this manifestation was a simple outline of white light, the intricacies of the detailed Keyblade simplified into easier shapes.

"I believe that detail might come with practice," Sheik put in. "Or not. I have never seen this type of magic before. Can you rid yourself of it entirely?"

"Yeah," Roxas answered after a second, dissolving his illustration-Oathkeeper into white mist, which blew away on the wind. Sheik frowned. His wing flapped twice, but no more.

"I believe that the size of what we might conjure is limited," he said. "Try as I might, I cannot create a matching wing of equal size. However…" He leaned over and placed a hand on Roxas's arm. Immediately, a second appendage curved up and out from his shoulder blade. "…We may draw more power from those around us. Fascinating." After a few seconds, Sheik's wings disappeared in the same way Roxas's fake Keyblade had, and he pulled away.

"Now the only question is whether or not our conjurations are truly solid," Sheik continued in a scholarly voice. "Or if the lines themselves are the only solid part. If one were to make a wing in such a way, it could not be used for actual flight…"

Roxas nodded, pretending to be interested. His eye was caught by a slight movement over Sheik's shoulder. He zeroed in on it, his mouth quirking into a smirk at the sight. He nudged his taller friend's shoulder.

"Hey, Sheik. Someone's waiting for you."

"Who…?" Sheik turned around, the query dying on his lips as his gaze was caught by another's. Without even a 'goodbye', the braided Nobody drifted away from Roxas, towards the waiting form of Link. Roxas rolled his eyes, his smirk widening as he saw them meet. Their embrace quickly turned rather _enthusiastic_, and Roxas turned politely away. Well, they had just come out alive and relatively unhurt from a large-scale war. Any couple would reunite joyfully.

Speaking of which… Roxas struck out towards the lingering figures of Sora and Kairi.

"Hey! You two!" he waved his arm over his head as he approached. The two looked up sharply, grins breaking out over their faces. Roxas broke into a jog, Sora hurrying forward to meet him. The two halves met up with a crushing, relieved hug of the über-masculine, back-slapping, hearty-chuckling variety. As they were both lanky teenage boys, the über-masculine part didn't come off so well, though the chuckles were hearty and the backs well-slapped. When they pulled apart, both were grinning widely.

"What are you _doing_ here, you moron?" Roxas demanded happily.

"It's a really long story, but in short… I felt you," Sora thumped his fist to his chest. "I felt you call out for help, so I loaded up the Gummi Ship and came right over. Along the way, I kinda picked up those guys," he hooked a thumb over his shoulder, "and things got out of hand. How have you been? And what are you doing… um… out?"

"That's a long story, too," Roxas laughed. Sora shook his head smilingly.

"We'll have plenty of time to tell each other all about it," he promised. "Now that you're here, we can finally just… talk."

"Yeah. That sounds great," Roxas agreed, his eyes shutting. _This must be what they call… contentment…_

_I like this…_

For the first time since waking in the Field, Roxas felt at peace. There was no more answer to seek, no powers to master, no evil to find or fight. And no inner struggle, either. Maybe it was just a trick of his mind but here, standing together on this battlefield, Sora suddenly seemed just as short as he was. And pooled there at his feet was the brunet Hero's shadow. His real one.

The moment was broken by a sudden commotion among the Stals behind them. Sora turned to see a tall figure carrying a dark sword break through the crowd, running towards them at top speed.

"Riku!" The Hero of Light cried out, running forward as well. "Ri—!" His cry was cut off as Riku skidded to a halt practically on top of him, his mouth descending on Sora's with wild abandon. The brunet squeaked in shock, his eyes sliding shut a moment later. The squeak quickly became a moan as the taller boy pressed forward, one hand on his waist curving his spine backwards.

"Well, finally," Kairi muttered under her breath. Roxas blinked a few times, looking away with an uncharacteristic blush on his face. That… was just strange. Watching someone practically your twin making out with someone else… And that 'someone else' being one of your worst enemies, no less! Just strange…

The two finally surfaced for air, pulling apart only enough that they were no longer, by technical definition, kissing, and pulling back so Sora could stand up straight. Riku's glazed eyes caught Roxas's corner-of-the-eye, are-they-done-yet? glance over Sora's head. He glared slightly.

"What?"

"Nothing," Roxas smirked. "Nothing at all."

"Play nice," Sora ordered. Any authority in the command was all but nonexistent, though whether that was due to the full-body blush he was sporting or the dreamy smile plastered across his face (or the fact that he was still being cradled in Riku's arms) was a toss-up.

"So now what do we do?" Kairi asked practically. Roxas turned to her, glad for the distraction from the awkward scene.

"You three can come back to the castle with me for now," he said. "Zelda won't mind at all, I'm sure. And even if she does… well, I'm bringing you as my guests. I've… kind of got some political pull in that area…" he rubbed his head and looked away for a moment, returning after a pause. "Anyway, you can stay there for a few days while we figure out what to do. Your army can just… camp here, I guess."

"Chief Yeeap and Lieutenant Nihip will want to come to the castle to speak with the Princess," Kairi predicted. "They're the Lizalfos leaders. Fren's Twili and Zant should come, too, for the same reason. As for the Stals…"

"I'll talk to Zant," Riku's voice was firm. He released Sora, who stepped back with great reluctance. "He's pulling that damn sword out of the Stallord even if I have to shove _my_ magic sword through _his_ skull to make it happen. The Stals should go away with their leader gone."

"Great," Kairi nodded. "I'll go get the Twili and the Lizalfos." She turned and jogged away. Two skeletal dogs peeled away from the throng of the living dead to pelt after her. Roxas blinked.

"I should go, too," Riku sighed. He aimed a smile at Sora, his voice softening a little. "I'll be right back."

"Kay," Sora smiled back. The silver-haired youth leaned in for a quick peck before he, too, turned away to slog back through the army of skeletons.

"Now _that_ was unexpected," Roxas commented offhandedly. Sora looked at him.

"What was?"

"You," the Key of Destiny pronounced slowly and clearly, "and Daredevil over there. It's good to see he's lost that middle-aged look. Frankly, it creeped me the hell out."

"Oh, yeah, that," Sora laughed shakily, his blush reemerging from the depths. "I guess… But you're one to talk! What about you and Axel? Hmm?"

"E-Eh?" Roxas started. He was irritated to feel his own cheeks ignite. "What are you…? How did…?"

"We met during the fight," Sora carefully edited. "And he mentioned something like that."

"…In the middle of the fight?" Roxas was skeptical.

"Um… yeah. Anyway, you should probably go find him," the Hero of Light glanced around as if expecting Axel to appear out of thin air around them. "He's got something to tell you, I think."

"Sora…" Roxas's shoulders drooped infinitesimally, his expression sad. "Where did you get those burns all over your face…?"

"Wha…? These?" Sora unsuccessfully attempted to glance nonchalantly at his own face. "Oh, these. They're nothing. Don't worry about it."

"He tried to kill you… didn't he?" Roxas sighed heavily. Sora's forced smile faded into nothingness, his eyes dropping. It was true what they said. You really couldn't lie to yourself.

"He did."

"Axel…" Roxas squeezed his eyes shut.

"He couldn't, though," Sora hurried to assure him. "He had me right there under him and he couldn't do it. And the only reason he tried was because he thought killing me would free you. From… something."

"He thought…?!" Roxas looked up sharply, torn between anger and incongruous flattery. "That idiot! I've…! I'm going to go find him. Right now." He turned resolutely away and stomped in the vague direction of where the Hylian army had once stood. Axel must have been pulled to that side… right? Probably. So Roxas set off, scanning the Field for any splash of wild red or mint green.

He saw only a field of mud, stretching in all directions. And, just a few yards away, a lonely, abandoned skateboard, trampled into the mud and snapped carelessly in half. Roxas sank to his knees by the object and picked up the shattered pieces, heedless of the splinters that dug into his fingers. He looked back over his shoulder at the congregating figures of his friend's friends. He watched as Riku and Sora met with yet another kiss, as if now that they'd realized what they'd been missing they never intended to part again. He dropped his gaze back to the board. The board he'd shaped with his own hands in the hope of making something wonderful. The board now broken beyond repair by some stranger's actions. He looked at the skateboard and had the strange urge to burst into giggles, tempered by the urge to cry.

He did neither.


	22. 21: Aftermath

**Kitty: -blushes furiously- M-My notes are at the bottom of this chapter. All I'll say here is that this chapter ups the rate to M due to LEMON. –blushes darker- The codeword is 'pretend'. If you want to skip the lemon, it starts right after Axel talks about 'pretending'. **

**Axel: -stares at the end of the chapter- Man I wish YearOfTheKitty owned Kingdom Hearts or Legend of Zelda...**

**Kitty: ...Oh, God, what if someone finds this on my computer...? //// **

**Axel: Enjoy! I know I did!**

**Kitty: -dies-**

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

**Chapter XXI**

**Aftermath**

"_Who said it was easy to put back all these pieces?"_

—_Sum 41, 'Over My Head'_

Zelda, true to his prediction, didn't mind Roxas's guests in the least. She, Zant, Fren, Yeeap, and Nihip closeted themselves up in the war room for hours on end for the next few days. Sora, Kairi, and Riku took turns telling their story to Tetra, Link, Sheik, and Roxas, who, in turn, told his story back to them. In the meantime, the Hylian gang (plus Roxas) took the opportunity to show the Islanders around the castle. The swapping of stories—while not quite managing to make Roxas _like_ him—instilled a grudging respect for Riku in the blond Nobody. He had at least a modicum of regard for anyone who went through that kind of worlds-shaking revelation without either going into denial or depression.

Behind all of the joking and good times they had together, though, Roxas's mind was never fully there. It kept straying away, much against his will, to a certain absence at his side and the person who should have been there.

Axel was not avoiding Roxas. Instead, he seemed to have disappeared altogether. Not a soul had laid eyes on him since Sora had left him on the battlefield after his failed assassination. It was as if he had truly died this time, though now Roxas was there enough to feel the sting of it.

On the second day of the Islanders' stay in Hyrule, Kairi brought up a very pertinent question. They had all been seated on the windowsills of three wide windows in the side of one of the castle's many towers—_sans_ Link and Sheik, as they were involved in another meeting with the Lizalfos leaders. Roxas had his windowsill to himself, while Sora and Riku shared the one to his right, and Tetra and Kairi took the one on his left.

"...and then she jumped straight up, right over the wall!" Roxas was saying animatedly, his hands waving to illustrate his words. "That horse is amazing, I'm telling you! I'm starting to wonder if she's really only a horse at all..."

"I bet the people in the ranch were surprised," Sora laughed, leaning forward eagerly. Roxas laughed back, nodding.

"You bet! Naminé had to stop the workers from gutting me with a pitchfork," he related. "For a little elf-person, that girl is scary..."

"Naminé?"

"No, the worker!" Roxas shook his head at his other half, amazed. "Does Naminé strike you as an 'elf-person'?"

"No," Sora turned away to hide his embarrassment. Riku, Kairi, and Tetra all snickered at him.

"I have been wondering something," the redheaded girl spoke up. "You said you came out because of Sora's artificial body, right?"

"Yeah," Roxas nodded.

"Well, then... where is Naminé? You said she came out, too, so... what happened to her?" Kairi asked with honest puzzlement. Roxas blinked.

"She's... still in the ranch," he admitted. Kairi stared at him for a moment, her face darkening.

"You _forgot_ her?!"

"There's a lot on my mind right now!" Roxas defended himself. "I swear, I didn't mean to leave her there!"

"We're going," Kairi stated flatly, rising to her feet on the wide ledge. "Right now. We're going to see her."

"Alright, alright!" Roxas, too, stood up. He inched backwards a bit, remembering the last time he'd stood so close to the edge while hanging out with his friends. This time, there was no data to fudge and save him. If he fell, he fell, and his new powers were no help unless someone else fell with him.

Now there was a thought...

"Come on, then," he grinned wickedly. "Let's go!" He leaned dangerously out around the pillar between their windows to seize Kairi's arm. Then, with a barely withheld cackle, he fell forward, pulling the slim girl down with him. He heard the other three cry out in alarm above them as they fell, and Kairi added her own shriek to the mix. Roxas smirked, wrapping one arm around her waist.

With a gentle tug, gravity released its hold on them, and the two teens swooped upwards, into the sky. Kairi looked back to see the same child-drawing wings curving from Roxas's shoulders. The sight unnerved her—how were they holding them _up_? They were just empty spaces between glowing lines—so she turned forward once more.

"You could have warned me," she snapped. Roxas laughed.

"I could have," he agreed. The girl harrumphed, but gave up trying to scold him. It was just a waste of breath anyway.

Lon Lon Ranch rushed to greet them. Roxas could see the small squares of the ranch's buildings beneath them. The little horses ran around like startled beetles, possibly because of the winged figure descending upon them, and possibly because of the two boys that had just stepped out of a black portal with glowing geometric designs into their corral. (Tetra had evidently elected to stay behind.) Roxas tilted his wings and spiraled downwards. Two girls had already emerged from inside to greet the boys. One of them was carrying a pitchfork.

"...coming now," Sora was saying when they got close enough to hear. The breeze blew away Malon's query, but Sora's only answer was a finger jabbed upwards. A blond head and a red one tipped back, two sets of blue eyes widening as Roxas and Kairi dropped out of the sky to land with a thump beside Sora.

"Show-off," Riku accused. Roxas shrugged shining wings, grinning.

"If you've got them, why not use them?"

"Roxas... Kairi..." the blond girl half-hidden behind Malon breathed. "You were... flying...?"

"Not for long," Roxas sighed, pulling his arm away from Kairi's waist. His extra limbs fuzzed out as they always did. It was a pain, this mandatory contact...

"Naminé," Kairi greeted her. "I'm so glad to see you! How are you doing? I'm sorry we didn't come sooner, but this bonehead forgot to tell us you were waiting."

"That's okay, I'm fine," Naminé said. She stepped out from behind Malon and took a deep breath, obviously steeling herself for something. She held out one hand to her mirror double, her face set. "Kairi. I've been thinking a lot recently and... I want to be one again. I want to integrate with you."

"Naminé!" Roxas yelped. "Why...? I thought you said you wanted to come with me and Axel!" Everyone present (besides Malon) gave the boy pitying looks. Naminé shook her head, smiling kindly.

"I did. But I thought about it, and I know you two would get tired of me. Always hanging on, always in the way, always having to worry about poor, defenseless Naminé. Not to mention I'd be in the way of other things..." she shut her eyes, pained.

"Naminé..." Roxas said again, sadly. Riku's eyes shut as well in sympathy, remembering when the person most important to him had been in pain, and how he had only been able to repeat that one word over and over again. Sometimes, there was just nothing else you could say.

"I've had a lot of time to think," her eyes opened, resolute once more. "I came to terms with it, Roxas. You were never... never that person to me. And while I'm out as just me... there's nothing really for me to do." She looked back up at the sky, her face wistful. "All those pictures I made of everyone happy on the Islands together... I want those pictures to be true."

"You can come back with us," Sora offered quietly. "As long as you don't want to, her Triforce will keep you from integrating. You can stay with us and make those pictures true."

"Sora," Naminé's head dropped in surprise, "you remember?"

"No," the Hero of Light shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, I don't. As far as I remember... this is only the second time we've met."

"I see," Naminé drooped. "I had hoped..."

"I chose to remember only what was true," Sora interrupted, "even if that meant forgetting what happened in Castle Oblivion. I don't know why I did, and I never will. But if you come back to the Islands with us, we can start over. We'll be true friends this time, without any of that other stuff. We can _make_ that truth ourselves. If you go back into Kairi now... you'll be taking that choice away from yourself."

"All my life..." Naminé directed her gaze to her feet, her shoulders trembling. "All my life, all I've ever wanted was to be Kairi. To live on Destiny Islands with Sora and Riku, and to be happy with them... It was all I dreamed about, all I wanted. Just to be Kairi."

"Naminé," Roxas stepped forward to put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, her gaze watery. "No matter how hard you try, as you are now, you'll never be Kairi."

The girl jerked back as if he'd slapped her, open hurt crossing her face. Kairi and Sora both started towards Roxas, their expressions furious, and even Riku cast him a particularly contemptuous look. Roxas ignored them all, putting his other hand on her other shoulder and forcing her to look at him.

"You'll never be Kairi unless you integrate with her," he repeated. "But that's not what you really want. It's the only way you can see being friends with Riku and Sora on the Islands, so you've convinced yourself that that's what you want. Wouldn't you rather be friends with Kairi, too? To egg the boys on when they start sparring, to referee their races, to make them do their homework in July instead of putting it off until August, to draw them all sitting on that palm tree? Kairi doesn't draw, you know. Wouldn't you much rather hear them run up the beach shouting your names, and run to meet them alongside her?"

The girl flinched at each example he listed, her shoulders trembling even harder under his hands. A few tears leaked out of her eyes and splattered the ground between them. Her fists clenched.

"Yes..." she whispered. "I want that. I want it so much..."

"So take it," Roxas ordered her. He let go of her shoulders and pulled her limp wrist back up, shoving it towards Sora. "Take what he's offering you. Start over. Learn to live like Naminé, not like Kairi's shadow. It's hard to do, I know... I had to learn how to do it, too. But, in the end, it's worth it."

"Can I...?" Naminé turned sparkling eyes on Sora.

"Can you what?" he prompted gently. Her smile widened, despite the tears that flowed even faster down her face.

"Can I go live on the Islands with you...?" she asked. Sora's grin matched hers as he reached out to take her hand. Roxas released her wrist.

"Of course you can," he nodded.

"You'll always be our friend," Kairi put in, laying her own hand atop their joined ones. Faint golden shimmers appeared around the two girls, but neither disappeared, and nothing more happened. Riku put his own hand on top at Sora's pleading glance, but looked away uncomfortably.

"I guess... you'll have to help me look after them now, huh?"

"I will." Naminé nodded, her tears splashing on the pile of hands between them. "Thank you all..." Her voice rose, the words broken by sobs. "I'm so... I'm so happy!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The walk back to Hyrule Castle was long, but not a one of the teenagers minded. They spent it talking. Not about anything in particular, just... talking. Kairi and Naminé unanimously agreed that they were so over guys with spiked-up hair. Roxas attempted to prove once and for all that he had more muscles than Sora. Riku settled the matter by calling them both twigs and informing the girls (with an exaggerated wink) that his hair was spiked _down_. This prompted Sora to instigate yet another make-out session, while the girls pretended to swoon and Roxas clutched his throat making gagging noises. They hardly noticed the yeards disappearing under their sneakers (and sandals, in Naminé's case) as the castle grew larger before them. For the first time in his short life, Roxas did not hesitate on the threshold of the castle's gates.

Of course, the moment they entered the castle, all tomfoolery ended. The courtyard was in chaos, with warriors of all races running hither and tither frantically. Most seemed to be heading in one direction, though: towards the throne room. Sora ran forward to catch the shoulder of a passing Zora.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"The sentencing is beginning," the Zora said distractedly, shaking off his hand. "I must hurry!" The fish-man ran off before Sora could ask more. The Hero of Light turned back to his companions blankly. They all shrugged at him.

"Roxas! There you are!" A familiar face suddenly appeared out of the throng of people. Tetra seized her friend by the elbow, towing him along with the flow of the crowds. Sora, Riku, Kairi, and Naminé trailed along behind them curiously.

"What's happening?" Roxas repeated his Somebody's words.

"The Princess is sentencing that traitor Ganondorf," Tetra's voice was terse. "He apparantly convinced the Gerudo that were supposed to attack with the Hylian cavalry not to. In fact, he told them to wait for the battle to finish and then kill the survivors, no matter which side they were on."

"But the Gerudo were with the footsoldiers," Roxas protested. They crossed the threshold into the throne room. The long room was packed with bodies, all buzzing and craning to get a look at the figures on and before the throne.

"Those were the ones he wanted killed for being loyal to Lady Nabooru," she said. "I'm oddly flattered that I was put in that group... In any case, he claims to have had nothing to do with it, but one of the Gerudo traitors we caught told us the whole tale."

"Which one?" Roxas demanded. Tetra shut her eyes, pained.

"Nasuerah."

"Ganondorf Dragmire," the Princess's voice silenced everyone in the hall as surely as if she had hit the 'mute' button on reality. The watchers settled in, and Roxas managed to peer through the gap between a Zora's arm-fin and a Hylian's shoulder to see what was happening.

The former King of the Gerudo knelt before the throne, though obviously not of his own volition. He was flanked by no less than five Hylian soldiers with their swords unsheathed. His arms were bound behind him, and his face was twisted in fury. Zelda's expression matched his almost perfectly, giving the moment a strange symmetry. She was leaning forward slightly on her throne, looking more regal than Roxas had ever seen her look.

"You are hereby charged with breaking an oath sworn before the Goddesses themselves, an act of highest blasphemy. You have once again attempted to usurp my throne by conspiring to assassinate myself and the Hero of Time, as well as several Sages. What do you say to these charges?" she demanded. Ganondorf sneered at her. Roxas was struck by the thought that even on his knees, Ganondorf was just as tall as he was.

"I had nothing to do with any conspiricy," he maintained. Zelda gestured with one hand. A sixth soldier stepped forward beside a red-haired Gerudo girl who was bound in a similar manner to Ganondorf, though she was on her feet. Her veil had been removed, a fact that caused Tetra to wince in sympathy. Though she had never worn a veil herself, she knew what an indignity it was in Gerudo culture to remove one's veil in public. It was made all the worse for the fact that she knew this particular Gerudo.

"Nasuerah," Zelda said, "you are accused as part of a conspiracy to assassinate myself, the Hero of Time, and the Sages. Do you identify Ganondorf as the leader of this conspiracy?"

"I do," Nasuerah's voice trembled, but her resolve did not waver.

"In that case," Zelda glared at the man before her, "you are found guilty of your crimes, Ganondorf. The punishment for an oath-breaker is execution by the Ancient Sages. Until that day, you shall remain in this castle's dungeons to await your fate." She nodded to the guards, who began to usher Ganondorf to his feet (since they could not pull him, due to his size) and towards the door. To the surprise of all assembled, Ganondorf began to laugh.

"You can't kill me," he scoffed, even as he strode towards the door at the behest of his jailers. "I bear the Triforce of Power. No one can kill me!"

"The Ancient Sages will," Zelda promised him grimly. "You forget that they, too, were chosen by the Goddesses." Still Ganondorf's mocking laughter rang throughout the hall as he disappeared. Eventually, even that faded, leaving only Zelda and the bound Nasuerah. The Princess sighed and looked at the Gerudo girl sadly.

"Despite your noble actions in aiding Ganondorf's conviction, I cannot allow you to go free," she informed the girl. Nasuerah nodded.

"I know, Lady. I do not blame you for it."

"Then I am sorry, but your fate shall be the same as the other conspirators," she raised her voice. "The Gerudo who plotted with Ganondorf shall be banished from the Kingdom of Hyrule and its surrounding lands for the rest of their natural lives. Begin to move the prisoners immediately," she said to Nasuerah's guard. "I want this over with quickly."

"Yes, Your Highness," the man bowed and led Nasuerah down the same route Ganondorf had taken. The hall burst into whispers the moment they were gone. Zelda stood and descended from her throne, looking old and tired as she walked away. Roxas frowned. She seemed inordinately upset for a monarch who had just eliminated the most long-standing and potent threat to her kingdom once and for all.

"Who are the Ancient Sages?" Sora asked Tetra, confused. "I thought she was a Sage."

"The Ancient Sages are the Seven Sages' predecessors," the Hylian Gerudo explained. "They are the source of the Seven Sages' powers. The Sages call them from the Sacred Realm to perform the executions of blasphemers."

"How do they do it?" Kairi whispered, her hand white-knuckled where it was clenched around Naminé's.

"He will be taken to the place of his blasphemy—in this case, the Gerudo Fortress—and stabbed with a blade of holy light," she sighed heavily, rubbing her face. "Oh, Nas, how could you... This is a terrible day for all Gerudo..."

"It's not so bad," Sora attempted to cheer her up. "Only a few were banished, right? And the only ones left are loyal, so there's nothing to worry about."

"You don't know," Tetra laughed bitterly. "We Gerudo are a diminishing race to begin with. There are only as many of us as comfortably fit in that Fortress. A few hundred, at best. Of those hundreds, only a small percentage are the extremely old or extremely young because of the harsh conditions we live in, so most of us are warriors. Now, three-fourths of those warriors have been banished. That leaves us with... what? A hundred Gerudo? Less? Because of this, our race will be extinct before much longer."

"Extinct in Hyrule, maybe," Riku put in. "But the exiles will make a new Gerudo colony somewhere else. It's not like they'll be dead."

"Even so," Tetra sighed. "I knew I was one of the last of my kind as a Nobody, but even that was bearable if I was among my sisters. Now... it feels so much lonelier... Oh, Nasuerah!" The girl burst into sudden tears, turning and fleeing the room. The teens exchanged glances.

"We'll go," Kairi said, tugging Naminé behind her in pursuit of their friend. The boys said nothing as they went, each one guiltily grateful that he didn't have to figure out how to comfort her without making things worse, as Sora had. The throne room began to empty now that the drama was over, the various warriors returning to wherever they had come from.

"Well," Riku spoke, "that's one thing crossed off the list."

"What list?" Roxas asked.

"The list of things to do before we go home," the part-Twili youth scoffed at him as if it should have been obvious. "All that's left is for Zelda to make peace with the Twili and the Lizalfos, and we're out of here."

"That shouldn't take long," Roxas predicted. "She seems just as eager to be done with all of this as we are."

"It only makes sense," Riku shrugged. "After all, everything that's happened since you appeared has been completely and totally pointless."

"Huh?" Roxas blinked, taken aback. The tall boy sighed at his stupidity and explained slowly.

"You appeared with that Triforce of Naught and got everybody in Hyrule out for the Mirrors' blood. We came looking for you because you had appeared again, and it turns out that we are the Mirrors. We didn't want to fight, but ended up fighting anyway. Now everybody understands that it was all a big screw-up and nobody really wanted to fight. So, in the end, we haven't accomplished anything except a lot of senseless killing that nobody wanted to be a part of. In a few days, we'll all go back to the Islands, you'll go off wherever you go off to, and everything will be back to how it was before. Absolutely nothing accomplished. Pointless."

"I wouldn't say it was _all_ pointless," Sora pouted. This began another round of tonsil-hockey that Roxas turned away from, a little disgusted and a little jealous. In the end, where did that leave him and Axel? Had everything between them been for naught as well, or had they come out of it together, like Sheik and Link, like Sora and Riku, like Kairi and Naminé? Or maybe some things ended badly no matter what you tried. Like Tetra and Nasuerah. Like Zelda and Ganondorf.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Like, apparantly, the Hylians and the Twili. Zant, looking remarkably like a specter by this point, led his contingent of Twili out of Hyrule Castle early the next day in a black fury. His shouted accusations and wild threats rang through the halls long after they had gone, traveling through a Twilight Portal that the Twilight Prince had managed to create himself. He took with him the Lizalfos swords, leaving the Stallord once more a mere heap of bones piled up in the desert.

Link, when questioned, had cited the cause of Zant's anger to be Zelda's refusal to let the Twili return to Hyrule. Her reasons had ranged from a lack of space for them to live in to their inevitable persecution for their appearances, all the way back to her initial unwillingness to undo a decree set down by the Goddesses. Riku had nearly begun another fight with the swordsman when he repeated Zant's insults, calling the Hero and the Princess weak-minded bigots. The two had to be seperated by the combined efforts of Sheik, Sora, Roxas, and Tetra (who had emerged from her seclusion with relatively lighter spirits after a long stretch closeted up with the Princess of Heart and her Nobody).

Sora later told Roxas that Riku had already been upset by Zant's parting words to him, which were apparantly to the effect that he was a worthless Light-Dweller and that he would never be welcomed among the Twili—the only blood relations he knew—as long as Zant was alive. And since Zant was a Twili, he was guaranteed to be alive for centuries to come.

A bright spot in all of this misery was the final peace talk with the Lizalfos. The Princess agreed to instate them as their own race within Hyrule's laws, thereby eliminating the hunting of Lizalfos—or rather, making the hunting of Lizalfos classified as 'murder' and subject to the law under the same penalties—and affording them all the political rights of the Gorons and the Zoras. It could never erase the prejudice instilled within all Hylians from birth, but it was a huge step in the right direction. Of course, it meant that the Lizalfos, too, could no longer continue their blood vendetta against all who entered their desert, lest they start a war with the Hylians. But it was what they had wanted from the start.

Yeeap and Nihip departed on the same day as Zant, though in the evening, and on much better terms than he had. Tetra, too, left with the remaining Gerudo to pick up the pieces of their people in their desert home.

Finally, the three Islanders, Roxas, and Naminé were all that remained. Riku's list was entirely completed. There was no more reason for them to stay. It was decided that they would spend one more night in the castle before their exodus the next morning. The rest of that time was spent happily with each other, plus Link and Sheik, who no longer had any meetings to attend.

The sun had long set by the time Roxas began to make his way back to the guest room that had been assigned to him nearly a month ago, when he had first arrived at the castle in a legal capacity. He was yawning and rubbing his eyes sleepily as he pushed the door open. It had been an eventful day, though a fun one. Even if he was never quite able to drag his mind away from the empty space beside him...

Roxas tiredly brought out his left wing to light his way to the bed. It was very dark in these castles, he had noticed, after sunset. His handy new ability had eliminated the need for candles, much to the boy's relief. The soft white glow washed over the room, illuminating its sparse furnishings. A metal brazier, a small table, the chair to go with it, a wooden trunk, and, finally, the bed itself.

Roxas froze in the action of striding towards his bed, his blood running cold.

It was already occupied.

"Are you going to hit me again?" Axel smirked.

"I'd like to," Roxas growled, his surprise giving way to anger and hurt. "Where have you been?!"

"I warped back to my old penthouse for a while, and I lost track of the time," Axel sat up from his lounging position, addressing the ceiling. "Sorry about that. I needed time to think."

"What about?" Roxas spread his hands in confusion. "I thought we'd agreed..."

"Yeah, we agreed alright," Axel laughed bitterly and shook his head. "We agreed that we were in lust with each other. And since we're just empty bodies feeling bodies' needs, that's fine. The thing is..." The Flurry of Dancing Flames rose and crossed the room to Roxas, backing him against the door and leaning down until they were just a breath away from kissing. Roxas's heart was going a mile a minute, and his face was as red as Axel's hair, to his shame.

"The thing is, Roxas, it's not enough for me," Axel placed his hands on either side of Roxas's head. "I thought about it, and I've decided that I'm done pretending about this. I've been pretending for too long."

"P-Pretending... what?" Roxas asked shakily.

"Pretending," Axel said, "that I'm not head-over-heels in love with you." He crossed the gap and pressed a hot, minty kiss against Roxas's mouth once more. This time, though, there was something urgent to the kiss, something wild and... hungry. Axel shoved his tongue into the blond's mouth without waiting for permission, running it along every inch of it he could reach and tilting Roxas's head so that he could reach more.

Roxas thought about protesting. He did. He really did. For the first few seconds. The moment he felt Axel's tongue against his, however, was the moment he gave up all coherent thought and surrendered completely to the man pressed against him. This wildfire passion... this was what he loved about Axel. There was no will in him to fight against it.

Axel pulled back a bit to take in oxygen, smirking at the smaller boy's glazed look and swollen lips. He leaned in once more, this time bypassing Roxas's mouth entirely to slide his lips down the column of the boy's throat, kissing and biting alternately. The blond bit his lip to hold back a loud, wanton moan of pleasure. Axel noticed, but didn't quite care. Roxas would be moaning soon enough, he would make sure of it.

With another smirk, this one pressed against the skin of Roxas's collarbone, the redheaded pyro reached up to grab the X-shaped piece of metal on his partner's chest and slowly slide the zipper down, exposing inch by inch of pale flesh. Roxas's only response was to help shuck off his jacket and the zip-up beneath it, his dreamy face set. Axel took full advantage of the new territory, exploring with both of his hands and his mouth.

The long-awaited moan was finally released when Axel lapped at one of Roxas's rosy pink nipples. The blond moaned again, louder, when he bit down lightly, pleased by the reaction. He continued to swirl his tongue around the bud for a little while before raising his head back to Roxas's level and planting a long, slow kiss on his lips. When he finally pulled away, he was smirking again.

"So you liked that, huh?"

"Sh-Shut up..." Roxas attempted to glare. Axel's smirk widened. His foot shot forward, neatly hooking Roxas's feet out from under him. The gloved hands on his bare back caught him and lifted him, heading towards a very specific piece of furniture.

"Wh-What are you doing?!" Roxas demanded. As if he didn't know. Axel was interested to see that his blush came up from his collarbones, though. He filed it away under 'Useless Roxas Trivia' and continued laying the boy down in the center of the bed.

"I'm doing this properly," Axel finally answered, moving back so that he was at the foot of the bed. In a manner that was far, far more sensual than it had any right (or made any sense) to be, Axel proceeded to pull off Roxas's shoes, then his socks. That done, he moved upwards to pick up Roxas's left hand. The blond youth gasped softly as Axel tugged off his bracelet and rings one by one... _with his mouth. _The feel of the redhead's lips wrapped around his finger was almost more sexual than the feel of them against his mouth, if that was possible.

The small fry was taken care of, now, and it was time to move on to the big one. Axel shared another quick kiss with his soon-to-be-lover before moving down, claiming the other nipple in his mouth to distract Roxas from the thumbs hooking into the waistline of his pants. It worked like a charm. Roxas barely even noticed as he was divested of his pants, then his boxers. He did notice when Axel retreated once more, his gaze roving up and down Roxas's now fully-naked boy. Not a word was spoken, and Roxas suppressed his urge to squirm under the gaze.

In the end, he reached forward to pull at the zipper on Axel's coat, sliding it down as far as he could get it without sitting up. Axel finished that part for him, pulling off his gloves at the same time as his sleeves, and kicking off his own shoes. Roxas blinked, surprised. Axel noticed his look and grinned crookedly.

"What? You didn't think I'd be naked under there, did you?" he chuckled, tugging on the hem of his black shirt. Roxas flushed even darker.

"Shut up." He did sit up now, hands eagerly pulling the shirt up over Axel's head. He pressed two kisses to each of Axel's tattoos before initiating another one with his mouth. Axel's pants soon when the same was as Roxas's, as did his underwear. Roxas, by this time, was about the color of a plum and quite unable to look any further than Axel's collarbones. This did not escape the pyro, but, again, did not unduly worry him. As his hand began to creep down past Roxas's hip, a word from the boy stopped him.

"W-Wait."

"If you're about to tell me to stop, I am going to kill somebody, and you're the closest person to me at the moment," Axel stated, glaring slightly. Roxas felt a moment of jealousy for the man's apparant coherency before continuing.

"No, just... Before we do, I have to say..." he floundered for a moment before twining his arms around Axel's neck and locking their gazes, completely serious despite his reddened face. "I love you, too, Axel. I'm sure of it now. I love you."

"Great," Axel sighed happily, wondering if sex was even necessary now with the rush of contentment that filled him. An insistent throb from his lower regions informed him that, yes, it was entirely necessary, and so he continued. "So you won't mind this, then..."

His hand continued its interrupted journey. Roxas gasped and arched off the bed as he felt Axel's hand come in contact with his by-now throbbing erection. More than contact, Axel's hand wrapped around it and began to slide up and down the shaft slowly, teasingly. Roxas growled and bucked his hips, eliciting a chuckle and a murmur that sounded suspiciously like 'impatient little sucker' from the man above him.

The redhead's seeming indifference to the whole act had Roxas reaching out yet again in irritation. It seemed he was doomed to forever seek ways to crack that nonchalant barrier... though, he saw with a smirk as Axel gasped slightly, he seemed to have found a fairly effective way of getting a reaction from him. The blond continued to mimic his partner's actions, rubbing his hands up and down Axel's weeping cock, smearing the beads of precum all over its length.

Axel, in retaliation for this bold move, slipped his free hand around to Roxas's ass, probing until he found the tight ring of muscle. Roxas's moan was all but a shout as he felt the finger slip inside him. Axel chuckled against the youth's ear, his tongue carressing the curved shell as he murmured into it.

"Don't get ahead of yourself. We haven't even gotten to the screaming part yet..." Roxas bit his lip hard as Axel continued to prepare him, adding another finger and scissoring them painfully. After a little while of this, neither one could stand it any longer. Roxas sank his nails into Axel's shoulders and gave an insistent shove. Axel complied, pulling out his fingers and positioning himself between Roxas's spread legs. He leaned down to press his lips to Roxas's, moving forward at the same time with one swift thrust.

Roxas let out a strangled yell, the sound muffled by Axel's mouth on his. The redhead pressed kisses all over the boy's face, one for each freckle, as he gasped for breath, trying to control himself. It hurt... It hurt like nothing he'd ever felt in his short two years of life...

But, at the same time, Roxas felt whole for the first time since he'd woken up in Hyrule Field with that hollow feeling in his chest that told him his heart was gone once more.

"Axel..." he eventually groaned. "Move..."

"Roxas," Axel sighed back, purposelessly, as he complied. "Roxas, Roxas." He said his name with every thrust, the volume gradually increasing. Roxas felt something inside him catch fire, a certain spot that Axel made sure to hit, his entire body dissolving in heat, in a flurry of dancing flames. He discovered that Axel had, as usual, been right. Now was the part where the screaming came in.

"_Axel_!" he howled, dragging his fingernails down the older Nobody's back. Axel didn't seem to notice, merely increasing the pace of his thrusts. One of his hands remained braced on the sheets beneath them, while the other curled around Roxas's member once more. It wasn't long after that that the young blond's vision fuzzed out completely into a white haze that might or might not have been his wing disappearing as he was overcome by the waves of heat, crying out his lover's name a final time. He felt Axel stiffen against him a moment before the sticky, liquid sensation of the man's cum filled him, Roxas's name shouted out with a volume to match his own. Axel collapsed bonelessly on top of the freckled youth, his energy spent.

They lay like that for a few moments before Axel pulled out of him, rolling over so that his young lover could breathe. Roxas did so, sighing with pleasure as Axel's arms pulled him snugly to his chest. How it was that such a simple action filled him with such contentment after what had just occured was beyond him, but he didn't analyze it. Maybe it was just leftover contentment from... _that_... amazing thing that had just happened.

Roxas found himself drifting off to sleep, surrounded by a nimbus of warmth that had at the same time everything and nothing to do with the warm body pressed against him. He was pulled up for a moment by Axel's soft voice blowing against his ear.

"Roxas... did you really mean it?"

"I did. I do," Roxas breathed back sleepily. "I love you..."

"I love you, too, shorty." Axel's voice was the last thing Roxas heard before he dropped away into the embrace of sleep, which was suddenly as hot and bright as a bonfire.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Kitty: -is resurrected- Um. Well. What to say following THAT... Well, I'd like to thank everyone who read this, whether they reviewed or not. I know you're out there, and I hope you enjoyed this fic to its fullest. To everyone who did review, I thank you a thousand, nay, a million times as well. I hope that you loved reading this fic even a fraction as much as I loved writing it... **

**Axel: Sequel? :3**

**Kitty: Maybe. Before anyone gets excited about that, let me say that if—IF—I do write a sequel, it's unlikely to be posted for a LONG time. Like, months. Not only would I have to write it in between everything else I'm doing, I'd have to actually come up with a plot for one. If any of you out there reading have any ideas (for a plot, not just a crossover) I'll gladly hear them. Now, then, all that's left is the epilogue. Thanks again for sticking with me, and I hope that none of you were disappointed with my first lemon. (We'll see how long this fic stays up now, huh?) Ja ne!**


	23. Epilogue: The Same Stars

**Kitty: As sad as it seems, I love the quote for this chapter. ^^ In any case, this is the final FINAL chapter for my beloved All For Naught. It's been a great time, and I'm very sad to see it end. But now comes time for the curtain call, and I'd like all my reviewers to take a bow. A great big 'THANK YOU' to (in no particular order) William Bexley, Anon2094, whiterose141, Dragongal333, whoknew, LoriMina, omgi, Stars in a Shoebox, Katreal, Composer Gizmo-chan, foggybrains, 8, Vintage, taropita, and Pinuiini! You all rule! EPIC WIN. Srsly.**

**Roxas: YearOfTheKitty doesn't own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda, but she's sad about saying goodbye anyway. So I'll do it for her. Bye, all!**

**Axel: What he said. –glomps Roxas-**

**Kitty: For the last time, enjoy! Farewell!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Epilogue**

**The Same Stars**

"_Closing time; every new beginning_

_Comes from some other beginning's end."_

—_Semisonic, 'Closing Time'_

The waves bubbled with laughter, drawing hissing breaths only to burst into frothy chuckles moments later. The spray played leapfrog over the fishes, overlooked by the indulgent eyes of the palm trees as they swayed within the gentle caresses of the wind. Above it all, the rickety wooden structures sighed in contentment. The blue sky stretched on endlessly, refusing to dip at the horizon as it should have, leaving that space shrouded in haze and mystery. A mystery which held no allure at all for the chuckling waves or flexing palms.

The white sand stretched in a single, smooth pane from the small cliff as its back to the place where it sank under the liquid weight of duplicity. It lay undisturbed by wind or human, flat as shale. This perfection was tarnished only by the place where the sand seemed to rise up in imitation of the palms and mold itself into a rounded shape in the spirit of the laughing sea. The shape was varying shades of pale from top to bottom, with the same peach and yellow tints as the sand it blended into. The only spot of color or movement on the whole thing was the flat surface in front, across which were scrawls and scribbles of red and black and gray and pink and brown and yellow.

The wind huffed once, indignantly, as the masterpiece of the sand's smoothness was suddenly disturbed, pitted and piled in regular, rhythmic patterns. The culprits churned up and down through the shifting minerals, lifted and moved by the slim columns above them that led into a twiggy, limbed figure sheathed in pink and capped with red.

The waves hissed in displeasure as the sand's sculpture, too, was defaced by this interloper. The rounded shape on top jerked around towards the pink-red figure, revealing two pools too dark to be sea and yet too liquid to be sky.

The auburn-haired, pink-dressed girl halted by her blonde, white-clad counterpart, leaning down to seize one of her arms with both of her own. The sand-pale youth was hauled to her feet, stumbling slightly as the other began to tow her away, back across the once-pristine beach. Waiting at the other end were two more figures, one tall and one short, one dark and one pale. Both waved their arm above their heads in greeting, white teeth glinting as they laughed and called. The girls' own arms lifted in response, their teeth also flashing.

"_Come on, Naminé, you've got to help me referee this race!"_

"_Kairi! Naminé! Hurry it up, slowpokes!"_

"_This time I'm definitely going to win! Come watch!"_

"_At it again, you two? Okay, on the count of three..."_

"_One..."_

"_Two..."_

"_GO!"_

Abandoned on the beach, the colorful notebook lay. The wind shuffled curiously through the pages, flipping through scene after scene of sea, sun, sky, water, sand, palms, and countless repetetions of the same four youths. Finally, the wind settled on a page, leaving it open and murmuring in perplexity.

This boy was not one of the four recorded endlessly within the happy memories of the sketchbook. This one was blond, clad in monochromatic clothes, facing away from the viewer. He took up only one fourth of the page, standing in the lowermost corner. Dominating the page, curving out from the boy's shoulder, was a childishly drawn wing outlined with black crayon. It was the only picture of that boy in the entire book, even beyond where the wind flipped through pages of horses and chickens. Frustrated, the curious zephyr howled and raced away, its passage only noted by the ripples that fled in its path.

Suspended above it all, a white seagull glided placidly over just one island in a sea of many. It moved between the sun and the earth below it as it moved in the only way it knew how. And for a brief moment, the edges of its wings, silhouetted against the light, glowed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"It is done."

The words were soft, yet final. Good words—good tone—for their setting. Smooth green grass spread in every direction, striped with neat, orderly rows of ankle-high stones. These stones were each carved with a name, and numbered in the hundreds. On the top of every stone, a single triangle had been carved.

The words were spoken by a slender boy as he rose from where he had been kneeling before the very last stone in the very last row. A chisel hung limply from one tanned, bandaged hand. His voice was respectfully low, though it could not conceal a single note of satisfaction.

"It is."

The reply came from the slightly taller, infinitesimally broader boy beside him. The two leaned into each other as they looked out over the field of stones with sorrowful eyes. The movement went unacknowledged, as if it were somehow insignificant.

Or maybe only natural.

Their shadows reached out to lay their hands softly on the small stone markers as the sun rolled down the curved vault of the sky. As it went, the blue surface glowed as if lit from behind with cadmium fire. The smooth grass rippled in the growing breeze, tugging playfully at the slimmer boy's braid.

The fire behind the sky grew hotter, burning white through perforations in the cobalt dome above them, as the sun slipped off the edge of the world. A single, piercing note drifted on the evening wind. A song of missing, a song of loss.

A song of things to be found and the hope of reunion.

Two blue eyes and two red ones, reflecting different facets of the sky they watched, lifted to look up at the stars. The world stirred sluggishly around them, like a massive beast shifting in its sleep. The fleas on its back lived and died, but two things remained constant throughout eternity: the land below, and the sky above.

"There is only one sky."

The boy with red eyes held out his palm. On it balanced the hollow outline of a candle, casting a white glow that caused shadows to leap from the stones around them like ghosts fleeing into the world. Or perhaps out of it. Red eyes frowned, and the little drawing of a flame atop it began to flicker, and small drops of drawn wax rolled down the sides.

The other slid an arm around his shoulders, his eyes lit by a different light as he gazed upon his counterpart.

"And only one destiny."

He was not referring to the sky.

"All that's left is to live it."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The neon sign flickered twice before steadying, its low hum buzzing sharply in tandem with the flashes. The light it emitted was a literal electric blue—so bright that it was painful to look at for more than a few seconds. The tubes of glowing gas were arranged in the fat outline of a pair of spreading wings, set beneath the equally-painfully-red bubble letters. A small smirk spread across the face of the hooded figure standing on the sidewalk with its head tilted back and its hands in the pockets of its sweeping black trench coat. The smirk caused the figure's scattering of wet sand-colored freckles—just a few shades darker than the unruly wisps of blond protruding from the hood's confines—to dance.

_The Celestial Savior_.

The sounds of laughter and animated conversation spilled out into the street even through the thick wooden door and reinforced glass windows, along with the stripes of colored light that seeped between the slats of the windows' blinds. The sound was clearly audible, even over the cat's paw-pattering of rain falling from a sky that would have been black even had it not been blanketed with clouds. The sign blinked again. And still the figure stood there, staring and smirking, heedless of the water beginning to plaster spikes of blond across its forehead and seeping through the sides of its sneakers.

In time, a new sound—much softer than the sounds coming from the building before him, but louder than the timid rain—made itself apparent to the waiting figure: a rhythmic, sloshing thump. The sound grew louder, until the source came into view through the sheeting grayness. It, like the by-now-soaking figure, was clad in a black coat that reached its ankles, but this one's hood was down. A vivid shock of hair, as alarmingly red as a brushfire—or, possibly, The Celestial Savior's neon sign—stood out against its surroundings, just above twin slices of mint.

"You should really put up your hood, you know," the hooded one twisted his upper body around without removing his hands from his pockets, offering a smile to the newcomer along with his low-spoken words. "Ironic, isn't it?" He nodded at the steadily glowing (for now) sign. Mint orbs flickered, disinterestedly.

"The Celestial Savior?" he read out skeptically. "Awful name. My philosophy is that you should never name a bar something you can't pronounce while drunk. You get better patronage." The blond one laughed at that, and a smile lifted the omnipresent teardrops on the taller one's cheeks. Tears of joy, tears of sorrow. Or maybe just the rain.

"Did we do right?" the shorter of the two asked after his laughter had subsided, regarding his feet solemnly. "By leaving, I mean?"

"That's not something I can tell you, shorty," the redhead put his hands on his hips and looked down, sighing. When he looked up again, there was a small grin on his face. "Truths like that you gotta go find for yourself." He strode closer, until the blond could feel the heat from his body, and leaned down. His breath blew across sandy freckles. "And when you do find them, you'll feel it in your bones… and you'll _know_ what's right."

"We're not talking about leaving anymore, are we?" an answering grin rose to the hooded boy's face.

"Not a chance."

The small gap between them closed. They drew apart again, but only enough so that the blond could turn his back to the taller redhead. The taller figure pulled the shorter one flush against him, his arms wrapped around his waist. A round face with a snub nose and wide, blue eyes tipped back to share a smile with the other.

"Ready to go, partner?"

"Yeah. We'd better hurry…" blue eyes shifted past the face above them, to focus on the holes in the clouds above, through which tiny pinpoints of light like trapped raindrops sparkled. "…If we want to see them all," Roxas finished, the sparkle of adventure lighting behind his eyes.

"Then let's go," Axel replied, his own eyes crinkled in a rare, genuine smile.

Glowing lines sketched themselves out from the redhead's shoulders while the freckled one frowned a little. The lines dipped and swooped across the canvas of the air, a glowing outline laid out by an invisible pen in the shape of two broad, feathered wings. In the light of their simplistic radiance, the neon blue designs beneath the bar's sign became nothing more than a meaningless jumble of gas and plastic.

Glowing appendages flapped powerfully, scattering no rain with their ethereal feathers. The two black-cloaked Nobodies became all but invisible as they ascended into the sky on wings of brilliant light. The light shrank, until it was indistinguishable from the twinkling stars around it. And then, just when it seemed it could go no higher…the light winked out.

And on another world, halfway across the universe, a new star was born.


End file.
